Recipe for marketing in the 21st Century:

Ingredients

1 part news

1 part entertainment

1 part advertising

Directions

Combine in blender. Hit puree.

Serves: Everyone but the Jurassic types who think you have a right to know when you’re being advertised to.

Welcome to branded content, a.k.a. ads in sheep’s clothing.

It’s everywhere these days, from TV programs that let advertisers use characters from the show in commercial breaks, to cast members who deliver product pitchesduring the show, to advertisers paying their way into top trend lists, to thepioneering sponsored content in Mike Allen’s Politico Playbook daily tip sheet.

Regarding that last one:

A review of “Playbook” archives shows that the special interests that pay for slots in the newsletter get adoring coverage elsewhere in the playing field of “Playbook.” The pattern is a bit difficult to suss out if you glance at “Playbook” each day for a shot of news and gossip. When searching for references to advertisers in “Playbook,” however, it is unmistakable. And its practitioner is expanding the franchise. 

Allen has added Capital Playbook, “a newsletter stemming from Capital New York, the news site that Politico acquired earlier this year,” to his growing roster of daily production.  Presumably Politico Playbook’s branded content – and powderpuff coverage – will tag along with him.

But that’s to be expected, because publishers are on branded content like Brown on Williamson.

According to a new survey by Hexagram and Spada, 62% of publishers currently offer branded content/native advertising and another 16% plan to do so in the next year. Beyond that, MediaPost notes, “41% of brands and 34% of agencies currently use native advertising, with an additional 20% of brands and 12% of agencies planning to begin using it within the year.”

Part of the shell game resides in the multiple labels the marketers attach to native advertising, as illustrated in this graph . . .

Read the rest (and there’s a lot of it) at Sneak Adtack.