Smart piece in Adweek about the virality of native advertising.
Native Advertising Wasn’t Really So Viral in 2013
New Sharethrough report shows how few sponsored stories popped
Are we so sure that all this sponsored content is worth the
trouble?
Native advertising distribution firm Sharethrough compiled a ranking of the biggest brand-produced sponsored stories from 2013. And what perhaps sticks out the most is that none of these stories seems to have really taken off on the social Web—which is the promise of the entire native ads movement.
As Adweek notes, “the top sponsored story on the list was from Harper Collins. It naturally ran on BuzzFeed: 17 Problems Only Book Lovers Will Understand. According to Sharethrough, the piece generated 715,267 social actions.”
But, Adweek also notes, “[it’s] pretty striking that not a single brand (at least among those tracked by Sharethrough) could crack a million shares or likes. Even more striking: the falloff is severe. In second place was a story by Blackberry on Cracked: 5 Real-Life Stories of Twins Creepier Than Any Horror Movie that generated 656,478 actions.”
It goes off a cliff from there – to 115,000 for the third-place story and etc . . .
Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.
Campaign Outsider 
Ok, my ever-enlarging New Year’s resolution list will include discovering what “native advertising” means. A number of possible answers spring to mind. But I’ll hold the thoughts.
Spoiler alert, Mike – native advertising is ads in sheep’s clothing: marketing messages packaged to look like editorial content.
________________________________________
Virulent is more like it.
Do we dare dream that it simply won’t work? I’ll have to revise my entire appraisal of humanity if that happens. It’ll be like a visit from the three ghosts, without the spotted dick.
Excellent, Mick.
________________________________________