It's hard to persuade advertisers to close their eyes to the wastefulness of running display ads. So media outlets decided to tempt them with the chance to blend brand communication with their main offerings. And it has worked beautifully. Business Insider, a top apologist for the native advertising model, reported last year that spending on the format was growing exponentially and would reach $5.7 billion in 2018, compared with $1.9 billion in 2015. Even the New York Times got into the business and saw it grow fast, claiming that labeling the content "paid post" or "stories from our advertisers" was enough to set it apart. The Times later dropped the word "stories" from the second label, after some readers complained it was misleading. In a column about the practice, Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote:
If native ads look too much like journalism, they damage credibility; if they look nothing like journalism, they lose their appeal to advertisers. A fine line, indeed.
