Native Advertising Gets a Warning

The Federal Trade Commission is chiming in with a warning on native advertising, those social media posts that look and feel like a regular post in the user's newsfeed but is actually an advertisement.

This doesn't look good for the future of such practices:

https://econsultancy.com/blog/66555-ftc-warns-about-native-ads/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

At the Clean Ads I/O conference in New York last week, Mary Engle, the FTC's associate director of advertising practices, told attendees that the FTC is uneasy with native advertising that users can't distinguish as advertising, making them deceptive.

"An ad is deceptive if it misleads a significant percentage of consumers," she explained, noting that the FTC sees 10-15% of users representing a "significant percentage of consumers."

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant