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State of the Cuisinart Marketing (III): Mercedes-Benz Drives Content at The...
From our Native Advertising desk Advertising Age is on the branded content beat like Brown on Williamson. Exhibit A: Native Advertising: Media Savior or Just the New Custom Campaign? Publishers and...
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The Sneak in Review (Social Shopping Edition)
This week’s trifecta: Shopping, Apping, Voting. The Internet Is Not Your Girlfriend Big Wall Street Journal takeout on The Shopping Social Network: Connection is the new name of the fashion e-commerce...
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New! Product UnPlacement!
Product placement is big business in America, as this helpful primer from MediaPost indicates: Product placement –- a.k.a. brand integration – has grown into a roughly $25 billion industry in the U.S.,...
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Conde Nast Cover Attachments: Not So Much Sneaky As Reeky
Newspapers and magazines have routinely rented out their front pages and covers to advertisers over the past few years, turning their banners into another kind of banner ad. But Conde Nast plows new...
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State of the Cuisinart Marketing (IV): Brand Journalism Is Bad News
Not long ago, the hardtracking staff promised to examine brand journalism, another flavor-of-the-month among the branded content set. And so, here we go. Start with PR Newser (“Is ‘Brand Journalism’...
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Branded Content, UK Style
From the Sneak Adtack International desk Given all the ads in sheep’s clothing we see here in America, it’s easy to think the US has a monopoly on stealth marketing. Not so, according to this post on...
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Jeffrey Rosen’s Excellent Edventure
The stealth marketing underworld is starting to surface above ground. Witness this New York Times Magazine piece by George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen: Who Do Online Advertisers...
View ArticleThe End of Anonymity?
The Wall Street Journal is so serious about covering the explosion in online data tracking, the paper has even outed itself. From the WSJ’s Weekend Edition: They Know What You’re Shopping For ‘You’re...
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Time.com Steps On the Newsvertising Gas
Apparently, Monday was Chevron Day at Time.com. In the endless quest for more ways to obliterate the line between advertising and editorial content, Time’s website started dropping Chevron logos...
View ArticleData-Mining Kids: Internet Players Are Agile, Mobile, and Hostile
That’s what legendary Texas Longhorns coach Darrell Royal said he wanted his players to be – except he pronounced it a-gile, mo-bile, and hos-tile. But that’s what the Federal Trade Commission does not...
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Marketers Very Content with Branded Content
The rush toward ads in sheep’s clothing continues apace, as this report from MediaPost’s Center for Media Research indicates: Aggressive Marketing Spending on Branded Content According to a new survey,...
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The Branded Content Boiler Room
This is the face of branded content as depicted by a weekly newsletter from the Custom Content Council, “the leading professional organization for branded content and content marketing in North...
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The Creepiest Place on Earth
Disney World is now Digi World, as this New York Times piece reports: At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales) ORLANDO, Fla. — Imagine Walt Disney World with no entry...
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Media Watchdog Poynter Goes Over to the Dark Side on Stealth Marketing
The hardtracking staff is acutely aware that stealth marketing ranks somewhere below Ghana on the average American’s radar screen. Still, you’d think the media hall monitors of this world would give it...
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The Atlantic’s ‘Native Advertising’ for Church of Scientology Leads to...
This was bound to happen. “Native advertising” – marketing material tricked out as editorial content – is all the rage these days, as the hardtracking staff has noted on numerous occasions. And media...
View ArticleProduct Placemint ($4.75 Billion Edition)
Advertisers to media content producers: Stick it in! From MediaPost’s Center for Media Research: Product Placement An Emerging Brand Marketing Solution According to the PQ Media Global Product...
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The Winter of Our This Content
Branded content – the packaging of marketing material as editorial or entertainment content – is all the rage these days, although no one’s very angry about it. From Advertising Age: Solving the...
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Gilbert and Sullivan’s Wilde Ride
From our Annals of History desk In the late 19th Century, W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were entertainment superstars, having written such boffo light operas as H.M.S. Pinafore and Pirates of...
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Breaking (the) News: Reporters Now Writing Branded Content
Bad enough that marketers are increasingly creating branded (or custom, as they call it) content. Now journalists are apparently creating it too. From the (unabashedly) liberal AlterNet: Scrambling...
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BuzzFeed Makes Branded Content Even Sneakier
From our Native Advertising Goes Ever More Native desk Lately the hardtracking staff has tried to be on branded content like Brown on Williamson, but as fast as we can write them up, the...
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