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 organizations have been entirely complicit in mainstreaming this form of stealth marketing, justifying it as beneficial to consumers who find traditional advertising “intrusive” and just want a seamless stream of information.

[One marketing executive] says he believes the new native ad formats actually are more appropriate and authentic for contemporary news audiences because there has been a generational shift in the way they consume content and the way people communicate in general.

“Especially with the new generation, if it’s in advertising, it’s suspicious,” he says.

Used to be the other way around: If advertising was disguised as content it was suspicious . . .

Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.