They’re everywhere, these “native ads”.
You maybe have heard of – or even fallen prey – to these wolves in sheep’s clothing. Because they look just like the content you’re seeking online – done up in the format of articles, videos, and other run of the mill posts – all hidden safely within the content flock of everything from Facebook to your favorite news outlet. The worst part is you don’t even realize you’ve been had till it’s too damned late and you’ve got an indelible, unnecessary association now stuck in your brain between some rock star you despise and an acne cream that doesn’t work.
(A more obvi example than some.)
On the one hand, I want the say “whatever, I know when I’m being marketed to” and pretend I don’t care.
Also, I can empathize with the poor writers who get stuck in these gigs – knowing they’re working for the enemy – but willing to do it (because: money). When you decide to eff off your college degree and follow your passion (AKA pen) instead, you take what you can get. I think I even recall an episode of “Girls” that centered around this whole premise.
But on the other, that’s part of why it bothers me. ’cause – for their efforts – why settle for this deceptive commercial writing? Do you really wanna get stuck in this ill fitting job where the passion part goes to die? The whole reason you didn’t go off and become the CEO of DouchincorporatedWithTheSkyscraperBuildingAndPanoramicWindowOffice instead? Just because it pays the bills (and has a free, fully stocked snack bar)? I just saw a few good examples as I was thumbing through a beauty magazine at the hair salon today – ads written to look amazingly like stories, until you realize that the makeup artist’s rundown of her aesthetic routine has more brand name drops in it than actual English language words. I can’t imagine trying to dredge passion out of someone handing me a product name and saying “Okay, sell this beauty-thing you know nothing about by tacking it onto celebrities. Or fashion week. Or even the Nepal earthquake if you have to.”
With numbers like that, though, I guess I get it.
Soul-selling starts to look pretty good to a starving artist whose not Van Gogh style serious about their ‘craft’. They don’t have their pick of the litter, so they settle for scribbling out litter. Which ultimately means that trash lands on me. And I’m none too pleased. I rather enjoy having the option of switching away from the commercials for half a minute the few times I opt to watch TV. Or employing my ad block for YouTube. But this native ad thing sucks because sometimes it’s seamlessly injected into the main event (the fact that I know it’s an ad just makes me resentful enough to add the ad’s product to my ongoing list of things to boycott). And sometimes, it’s not even in the entertainment. You just get totally trolled in your main go-to pages – especially when news sites and social media let the ads dress up in pink polo disguises that look like real content so they can sit with the plastics. It’s a waste of my time if I’m thumbing through links on a respected publication and give something the time of day because I believe there may be a legit new study that’s come out on a given product and am open to hearing some lab coats’ quotes on it – only to realize there’s the trolololo guy gently droning and dancing in the back of my brain halfway through.
And why would someone as brilliant as I am fall for that, you ask?
‘Cause they don’t even list them as an ad half the time. I mean, sure, some will be marked “sponsor”, but many aren’t. They’re just sammiched in so that you have no way of filtering out useless nonsense that will taint your brain for the day’s remainder. And that’s enough to make me wanna make my own emotional plea ad. One protesting native ads – but thematically sadder than the actual American Natives’ ad protesting the Redskins’ mascot.