Jellyfish native advertising. How to work with native advertising - the Meduza publishing method

In his blog on Medium, a note about how the publication works with native advertising and what principles it follows. We publish material with the permission of the authors.

A few introductions:

1. On May 21, we held a conference on native advertising in Moscow, there were the best of the world From this area, I would like to draw several conclusions based on the results.
2. Native advertising in Russia is becoming more and more. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's very bad. Unfortunately, there are already a lot of very bad native ads, which means that we are in danger. The main ones are: the undermining of trust in editorial offices (on the part of readers) and the real destruction of the “editorial wall” (between the editorial office and commerce).
3. We have been doing native advertising for a year now. We love to step on our own rake. Thanks to this, we understood something about native advertising. Our experience may be useful to other publications already engaged in native advertising- Or just thinking about it.
4. Watch the video. He is very funny, but joking aside - what is happening now is a massive process leading to tectonic shifts in the world of media. We must realize this. The video is already two years old, that is, the process has been going on for a long time.

Now principles

1. Native advertising  -  not quite the right definition for what we do. Native advertising  is when the site uses non-advertising formats in advertising purposes. This includes advertising on Instagram and Facebook, and a billion more. In the case of media, native advertising is primarily a way of announcing materials, either within the publication itself or in its in social networks. Advertising itself is more correctly called “sponsored content”. Both words are important: this is content that has a sponsor.

2. The main task of sponsored content is to “make it better for the advertiser, the publication, and the reader.

3. It directly follows from this that any material should be somehow useful to the reader, give him tools, entertain him. Accordingly, the editors of native advertising defend the interests of readers before the advertiser, not forgetting the interests of advertisers.

4. For any brief proposed by the advertiser, the publication must find a solution that will not mislead the reader. You can take the path of entertainment, you can take the path of usefulness in everyday life, you can use the associative series and come up with a parallel story, you can use the advertiser's expertise and use it to tell an important story for everyone. If there is no solution, the advertiser should refuse.

5. All projects of advertisers must be checked for cleanliness; this is especially true for complex segments (medicine and pharmacology, charity, financial, educational and legal services, real estate). Each - according to its own criteria (for example, in the case of pharmacology, we are interested in clinical researches drugs; and in the case of legal services- Oddly enough, their legality). If the advertiser fails the verification, it should be rejected. If the advertiser passed the test, but some unpleasant details came to light in the process of creating the material, the material will have to be canceled, and the money will be returned to the client. The one who makes native advertising is responsible for the quality of what he advertises; which means that the reputation of the publication is at stake.

6. The native advertising department uses the same storytelling techniques (formats) as the editors. First of all, this concerns new formats: their use in both journalistic and sponsorship projects ensures the integrity of the product and guarantees the preservation of editorial intonation. Moreover, when no editorial format is suitable for an advertising project, it is necessary to come up with a format that the editors can use in the future. This is how native advertising benefits the editors.

7. Any sponsored content should be marked wherever it appears: in the announcement of the material on the main page, in social media accounts, in the material itself. The marks must be the same and through; they can not only be deleted, but also adjusted at the request of advertisers. The reader must clearly understand that in front of him is material made for the advertiser's money.

8. Is it possible to create sponsored content without getting editorial expertise? No. The acquisition of knowledge can be arranged as follows:

• There is one liaison in the editorial office who is involved in inventing advertising materials (but not in creating materials), passing on editorial knowledge, ensuring the quality of the topics and the same intonation in inventing topics and formats. In Meduza, such a person is called an editor of new formats.
• Editorial staff may advise sponsored content editors.
• Editorial staff may fact-check stories already written  to ensure the quality of the result and to avoid misleading the reader.

9. The editors cannot participate in the creation of sponsored content. Is there an exception to this rule? Yes, subject to three important conditions.

Condition number 1. In some situations it is possible to order the material to the editor - so that the editor knows that it is an advertisement, but does not know for whom. Thus, journalistic work does not change in any way: the author does not come into contact with the advertiser, the material itself is created without taking into account the advertiser and according to all editorial canons. Example: the Garage museum orders a test about Moscow Conceptualism. There is an author in the editorial office who is well versed in Moscow conceptualism. If the author makes a test about Moscow Conceptualism without knowing anything about the advertiser (but knowing that the material is advertising), no aberrations arise.

Condition number 2. The order of advertising material to the editorial staff must be agreed with the editor-in-chief, who must make sure that there is no conflict of interest even on the horizon (and, of course, the author from the editorial office cannot be forced to write promotional materials).

Condition number 3. Ordering texts within the editorial office  is an  extraordinary, exceptional decision. Not a constant practice.

If these conditions cannot be met, do native advertising with the help of the advertising department and freelancers. Don't touch the edit.

10. The Advertiser Ignorance Rule also works with guest authors. From this knowledge, the author can subconsciously adjust the text to the requirements of the advertiser unknown to him, which spoils the quality of the text and creates the ground for a possible conflict of interest.

11. Sponsored content may not put the publication on any side in any conflict. Never and by no means: a conflict situation can be a reason for a journalistic text, but not for an advertising one. You can also formulate it this way: if a bad article about an advertiser is published in some publication (for example, in yours), you cannot make material for his money that whitewashes the advertiser (or denigrates a competitor). Therefore, paragraph 5 (on checking for cleanliness) is very important.

12. Sponsored content must be subject to absolute editorial dictate. This means that all complex materials (from the stage of inventing to the stage of release) must be approved by the editors and in failure- Cancel. Either the editor-in-chief is responsible for this (as it is now arranged with us), or a special person responsible for standards (as it is arranged in The New York Times). Chief Editor may cancel any advertising project at any stage, even after publication.

What is native advertising

This is the use of editorial formats for advertising purposes. And vice versa: advertising formats can turn into editorial ones. This is the type of advertising that the American media is now obsessed with (from Buzzfeed to The New York Times). And there are several reasons for this:

1. She is efficient. Unlike banners. To attract attention, banners are constantly increasing in size, becoming interactive, popping up, moving around, with video and sounds. The reader develops immunity. The first banner in the history of the Internet in 1994 read: “Have you ever clicked your mouse here? You click" - and it was true. Everyone called. Now readers don't even notice half-screen moving banners. And then there is Google Adsense, Yandex.Direct, Facebook and other sites with an unlimited audience. And no publication can compete with them.
2. It is inexpensive and fast to produce. In most cases, you use what has already been developed for editorial needs.
3. This is a cross platform format. Humanity is solving the problem of monetization of mobile platforms, in principle, such a question does not arise with a native - it doesn’t matter where you read such an article: on a website, in an application, or in Facebook Instant Articles.
4. She is not afraid of Adblock. On media sites, up to 50% of readers use a banner blocker. The native is not blocked.
5. This is the most non-irritating format for the reader. Checked. We constantly answer the question “Why are there almost no ads on Meduza?” when there are six tagged ads on the main page at the same time.
6. This is additional traffic. Banners are arranged like this: the more traffic you have, the more banners you can sell (if it's very rough) - the native brings traffic on its own. And rather big. We've had ads get 140,000 views. And we also made money on them.

Meduza's native projects have been collected

All this is wonderful. The problem is that almost no one knows how to do it. There are at least two reasons:

1. Price gouging. The native is good because it is inexpensive. But many sites, seeing new format, decide to cheat and sell the native as separate special projects - and for the corresponding money. But the new format cannot be expensive - otherwise it cannot be put on stream. The flow can occur when you show a serious result for little money.
2. Wrong sales. This is, in fact, the most important thing. Advertising in most publications exists as a necessary - but forced - addition to the publication. This is a separate closed corner, living according to its own laws and having a rather indirect relationship to the publication. But when we talk about the use of editorial formats, we mean not only that advertising copies, say, cards or articles, but that the intonation of these materials should be in tune with the publication. And another thing is that promotional materials should be treated with no less trepidation than editorial content.

This is a collaborative game with Airbnb built on GeoGuessr mechanics. The reader was shown a real photo of an Airbnb property and was asked to find it on a Google map.

How to make native ads read

The second point is so important that it needs to be written in more detail. What is the problem? You sell editorial formats, but you make them separate from editorial. If you do it automatically, outsource it to a completely autonomous department of special projects (in fact, another editorial office), then you will get an editorial office within the editorial office, living its own life and making materials that are completely uninteresting to readers of the publication. And readers do not come to the publication for advertising.

Joint game with McDonalds “Do you know the geography of Russia? " - one of the most successful projects Meduza (more than 2000 likes, for example). Each successful case leads to new requests from advertisers

During the time that we have been doing native advertising (this experience is short, a little more than six months, but effective: now we are launching five to ten native projects a week, in addition, we have five projects that are stretched over several months), we understood a few important rules of the native:

1. You need the first few high-profile successful cases. After that, they begin to trust you. This is very important both for attracting customers and for further approvals.
2. You bear the same responsibility to the reader for published advertising materials as for editorial ones. And it's not about the legal side, but about the reputation. If your texts, marked as native advertising, contain a lie (or not the whole truth) - this is very bad. If you talk about shady customers as good advertisers, that's too bad. That is:
   a) advertising also needs a fact check;
   b) you need to be very careful in choosing advertisers.
   We were wrong on both point a and point b. And learned from mistakes. But these mistakes were not to be made. It happens that in the process of writing a material you realize that you cannot work with such an advertiser for ethical reasons. Return the money.
3. Divide your formats into two kinds. The first is entertainment formats that do not directly describe the advertised brand or product. Such formats are not very risky in terms of reputation, since the advertiser here actually acts as a sponsor of the material. The second kind of formats is when you seriously describe the advertised product. Here the level of your freedom is extremely low, and to advertise something that you do not believe in, and to be cunning is like death. Such formats can only be offered to very trusted companies whose services you are sure of. By trial and error, we made a rule: the topic of any such material is approved by the deputy editor-in-chief, who is no longer involved in the creation of promotional materials.
4. Have 20 ideas in reserve that you can unexpectedly take out of your sleeve.
5. When coming up with an idea, try to use the formats that already exist and have been checked by the editors. And not only because it will be easier to do. If the editors constantly use some format, then it works. Coming up with dead formats for advertising means working in vain and doing inefficient things.
6. If there is no suitable format, come up with a new one. But come up with it in such a way that the editors can use it later. This is useful for two reasons: firstly, nothing is wasted - you get new development tools for the advertiser's money. Secondly, with this approach, you will not come up with meaningless garbage. Example: Meduza games originally came out of advertising ideas. We don't often use game formats multiple times, but each new game- this is probing and thinking through new mechanics, this is a new experience in creating news games. The most popular material in the history of Meduza, the game "Fortune tell on Brodsky", was originally invented as an advertising project, but did not sell (bite your elbows, dear advertisers: 400,000 views and more than 1,000,000 fortune-telling generated).
7. The most important thing. Treat advertising as if it were your own. This, of course, does not mean that the authors and editors of the publication should love or at least somehow focus on advertisers. In no case. But you need to build a system where promotional materials become as much of a pride for you as editorial content. This is a very difficult and dangerous moment, as it affects the most sacred thing in quality media - the concept of a wall between the advertising department and the editorial office. And it changes it (the fact that such changes are required is even written in an internal study by The New York Times). Your task is to change the wall without destroying it.

Cards have been incredibly successful as an advertising format (because they just explain complex things), but of the advertising formats, this is the most dangerous because when you make a card, you must be sure that you are right.

How should the wall between advertising and editorial be arranged if you sell native advertising

What is a wall

This is the basic rule that determines the relationship between the advertising department and the editorial staff in any self-respecting publication. The wall implies that editorial and advertising live in different worlds. The author does not think about the existence of advertising, the editor does not think about the existence of advertising, the editor-in-chief knows the advertising director, but does not take into account what kind of advertising is placed in the publication. The only person who is aware of advertising but is not in the advertising department is the publisher.

The advertising department does not know about the materials that are published in the publication, therefore, it cannot influence them in any way. Any conflict situations are resolved at the level of the publisher - editor-in-chief - Commercial Director and cannot affect the life of the editorial staff in any way. The last word in any conflict belongs to the editor-in-chief.

What's wrong with this

This is true with one exception: native advertising requires significantly more editorial expertise. In fact, it is necessary to strengthen the advertising part of the publication with editorial expertise without changing the editorial policy of the publication. To do this, you will have to pull several wires through the wall, transmitting a signal to one end: from the editorial office to advertising.

How to do it

Disclaimer first:

1. These are our rules, we invented them for ourselves and are not at all sure that they will suit someone else.
2. Rules are built on trust. We trust our editors and we know that they will not deal with denim and custom.
3. We are a small edition. We are not at all sure that such rules are possible in a large edition.
4. Special correspondents have nothing to do with advertising.

Now the rules:

1. Advertising materials must be created within the editorial office. There should be a few people in the editorial office who can come up with ideas for advertising briefs - while they are not financially interested in this. In our case, regular (almost daily) short meetings also serve this purpose. Coming up with ideas doesn't bring any professional aberration into the lives of editors: "it's just an interesting activity, you don't owe anyone anything."
2. The number of people in the editorial office related to the creation of advertising should be strictly limited and kept to a minimum. Two or three people, no more. The rest of the edition should be protected from advertising.
3. These people must have vast experience as a journalist and editor, they must understand very clearly what professional ethics journalist, and strictly observe it.
4. They must not have a conflict of interest. In Meduza, there is no pinning by topic, so situations that an editor dealing with banking, makes advertisements for banks, in principle, cannot arise. However, cases of overlapping topics may occur. All this should be checked before the editor takes the material to work. If there is even a hint of a conflict of interest, the decision is made in favor of the interests of the editorial board.
5. The Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor-in-Chief do not participate in the creation of advertising and are guarantors that in any disputable situation a decision will be made that protects the independence and objectivity of the editorial office.
6. Difficult materials should be submitted for proofreading to non-advertising editors. The editor should not have any connections with the advertiser and participate in the coordination of the material with the advertiser - on the contrary, he is a person from the editorial side, a defender of its interests and an impartial judge for the text.

Bottom line: your task is to transfer the editorial expertise to advertising without ruining the editorial. In this case, obviously, there are many more laws than described above, and in six months we will probably be able to prescribe a couple more.

The joint project with Tinkoff Bank will stretch for almost six months - more than a dozen materials will be released within its framework

How to call it

You need to come up with general rules games that give the reader a clear understanding that the material was written for the advertiser's money. That is, the reader, seeing the material, understands that it is different from the rest. Opening it, he sees it again. And we remind him when he finishes reading it.

These rules cannot be changed at the request of the advertiser. In fact, these are our guidelines from which we cannot deviate.

is that enough? After participating in a dozen disputes, we realized that no, not enough. Therefore, in the near future we will introduce new, stricter rules regarding how native ads look on Meduza.

The course of the media school "OM" in St. Petersburg on how to advertise in the media. About how to tell stories together with advertisers - and how to make them effective for the customer and useful and interesting for the reader. The course consists of a theoretical part and a practical part.

Theory: - Working with briefs: how to understand what the customer needs - Formats: how to choose the right form for the story and what mistakes lead to - Performance evaluation: how to make the client happy - Ethics: how not to deceive readers and not destroy the editorial office

Practice: Work with briefs, discuss ideas, create a project in a group and analyze it in detail.

What you get as a result: - Learn about native advertising and its types; - Understand the advantages and disadvantages of native advertising over conventional advertising; - Study the creation process both from the side of the customer and from the side of the publication; - Learn how to work with advertising briefs; - Understand native advertising formats; - Create your case and defend it before the author;

Who this course is for: - Marketers and PR professionals who want to learn more about working with native advertising; - Owners and business representatives who want to learn new tools to promote their product; - Media staff; - Publishers and journalists who plan to work with native advertising in their media; - Those who are looking at the work on the direction and want to learn more about the native.

Schedule

12:30 - 13:00 How to tell a story? History is at the heart of the material. How does dry information become interesting to anyone? The difference between a journalistic approach to information and advertising.

12:30 - 13:30 Who and how is involved in the creation of native advertising? Process of creation. Advertiser - publisher - reader. Not obvious, but mandatory participants.

15:00 - 16:00 How to clearly set the task for the contractor? Task formulation Purpose, emotions, brand presence. Brand values. Drafting an advertising brief. Stages of approval.

16:00 - 16:30 How to choose the right format? Native formats. What determines the choice of format? Text, video, photo, game. Answers to questions, tests, collections, instructions, stories, gifs.

16:30 - 17:00 How to embed finished material in your media? The place of native advertising in page layout. Distribution of content.

17:00: - 17:30 - Installation task

11:00 - 12:00 How to measure the effectiveness of native advertising? Efficiency parameters and how they differ from the standard ones. Editorial metrics, audience reach, engagement, conversions. Unobvious options.

15:00 Presentation and defense of projects. Results.

Ilya, in my memory, you were one of the first to talk about native advertising. It seems that the term itself appeared thanks to the Meduza projects. Is it so?

Unlikely. We just shout the loudest about him. In general, native advertising can mean completely different things. For us, native advertising is the use of editorial formats for advertising purposes. At the same time, if we come up with a new format in advertising, then it can also be used in the editorial office.

For example, advertising on Facebook is arranged according to the native principle - the place of a standard post is used for advertising, and the brand acts as a user. There are quite funny collisions. Let's say there is an ad on Instagram - that is, a banner picture. Only this is not a banner, this is already a native advertisement, because in order to put this picture, the standard position for Instagram is used - the picture published by the user.

Are there other online publications (namely publications, not social networks) that use native advertising?

Now it is becoming almost ubiquitous. There are a number of publications with which we somehow intersect all the time - vc.ru, lifehacker.ru. look at media. They didn't really call it native advertising until recently. They called it special projects, which were done on a slightly different basis since 2008, and maybe even earlier.

How did you come up with this format at Meduza?

Trial and error method. We experiment, and those things that we get, we begin to develop. When we launched, it was clear that we needed to earn. We started trying everything in the world, and that's what worked. Then we looked around and saw that similar things were already happening all over the world. And it starts to work for a large number of reasons, for example, because other types of advertising on the Internet lose their effectiveness. Secondly, because we compete with everyone in the world - Facebook, Yandex or Google are exactly the same our competitors as other publications. Now everyone has learned to measure efficiency, and in this sense, we are not only not competitive, we just have completely different volumes, so we cannot sell as cheaply as Facebook sells. And what we really know how to do is tell stories. This is our competitive advantage.

Just like everywhere. You made the material, it will have some coverage, and it is clear how much it will cost you. One way or another, everyone determines how different metrics have changed after the release of the material - brand awareness, sales, virality. Everyone is different.

How do users react to native ads? They don't associate it with "denim"?

Jeans is a custom material without promotional marks. Native advertising is when we, in fact, as an agency, together with the brand, do something that is useful and interesting to readers. And we warn the reader that this material was made together with a partner, and the partner paid us for it. We make sure that the user sees this message wherever they encounter this content — on social networks, on the main page of Meduza, in the material itself — at the beginning and at the end.

In general, we protect the interests of readers, this is the most important thing for us. Our task is to make sure that the fact that we were paid for some project does not make the reader feel worse, but better. With the help of advertisers' money, we do something that the reader will need and useful, or simply interesting and fun, or make a strong impression on him. We want the reader to only benefit from advertising.

We have quite active readers, they actively respond to our projects, sometimes they thank us, and there are situations when we did something not completely accurate, and these inaccuracies are pointed out to us.

In fact, the requirements for promotional materials are sometimes even higher than for editorial content, because when people see that this is an advertisement, they are some kind of guardians of ethics, honesty, and so on. Therefore, we feel a responsibility to our readers, they are our ethical commission.

They are taken with difficulty. My experience shows that it is very difficult to do such things with people who do not have journalistic skills and editorial experience. These should be people who understand how the editorial office works, these are not advertisers. Their task is to make a thing that will be useful to the reader, and the publication, and the advertiser.

Of course, a huge number of people are involved in this - the commercial department, designers, developers, myself. But, first of all, there is a native advertising editor who orders texts and leads the project, coordinates with the advertiser, tries to ensure that after approval the material becomes not worse, but better.

Does Meduza currently have a large department dealing with native advertising?

We have a commercial department, it has 5 or 6 people, 2 advertising editors, I do it all the time, we come up with ideas with one more person. Plus, one or two designers, technical contractors in the amount of several people are involved in this.

I have no idea. We resolve issues as they come up. Now we see that native advertising is growing. At the same time, the worst thing that can happen to any publication is that it will stop experimenting and start using only knurled schemes. Our task is to experiment all the time and turn these experiments into new formats.

Now I don't see any ceiling. Why I'm interested in doing native advertising - because it improves the quality. Great amount advertising is not clear why, annoying, costs huge money, and so on. I like to make ads that everyone needs. And this is very often possible. What will happen in the future, I don't know. It seems to me that formats will change, but the idea will not suffer from this.

Now publications are taking on the role of agencies: they are learning to do everything - from idea to implementation. And the more these functions a publication takes on, the more competitive advantage. But it is obvious that agencies will not die anyway, they will just need to learn how to effectively cooperate with publications.

They already work differently for us. Of course, the advertising department should in this case go much deeper into what the publication does. I often met with a situation where the advertising manager does not understand at all what this publication is about, does not read it, does not like it.

We talk about it all the time, but it only works when the people who come up with the publication talk to the advertising department and explain what we are doing and why.

How to prepare people for work in native advertising?

Only in practice, it does not happen otherwise. In general, everything that is connected with the media is learned only in practice. Theory plays a very dubious role here. It is not enough, and it is specific in each edition. You can watch how others do it and apply some of it to yourself, but there is no recipe anyway.

Can you give examples of Western successful projects?

We had the coolest analogues at the Storm conference, there is such a T Brand Studio that makes native advertising for The New York Times. There is The Buzzfeed. The Atlantic does amazing things... In fact, almost everyone in America is already doing this. In many publications, native advertising provides from 50 to 80% of revenue.

It turns out that the format of the media itself is changing - advertising is given a larger percentage of space than the actual editorial materials?

How does this follow from my words? No, if you give more space to ads than to editorial content, you won't get read. But it is clear that all this has a very strong influence on the media. This is, in fact, a rather dangerous process, it can lead to the fact that, firstly, the credibility of the publication is undermined, and secondly, the reader ceases to understand what kind of material is in front of him. Now an open debatable question is how to mark native ads so that the reader is not disoriented?

In America, last December, they released a huge document on how to tag native ads so as not to frustrate readers. Recently, a study was conducted during which all publications were checked. It turned out that only 9% pass the requirements completely, and another 10-20% do not pass at all. And therefore it is doubly important to make such advertising qualitatively.

Storytelling is our superweapon. Let's use it for peaceful purposes.

Interviewed by Maria Kigel

Added on 12/29/2015

What is a "native ad format"?

Native advertising is the use of advertising materials as editorial and vice versa. In simple words In other words, native advertising is advertising in the form of material on a website, usually articles. It is this type of advertising that is now most popular in the West, it is used by The New York Times. Why?

• Native advertising is very effective. Users have already developed banner blindness: they do not see not only classic banners, but also pop-up windows. Despite the fact that banner advertising has become very interactive and unusual (an ad that follows the mouse pointer no longer surprises anyone), sometimes with video effects and sound, it still lacks a lot of attention. Site users know very well where not to look, so as not to waste their time.
• Native advertising is completely inexpensive to produce. As a rule, the same tools are used as for the creation of some editorial materials.
• Advertising is cross-platform. You don't need to worry about how exactly your advertising material is displayed on mobile phones and tablets. You always know that it is displayed exactly the same as all your materials.
• You simply cannot block native ads. Today, the vast majority of users are familiar with Adblock, and the number and proportion of such users is only growing. For obvious reasons, native advertising cannot be “blocked”.
• Such advertising does not annoy the reader at all. According to Meduza's editor, they receive dozens of emails every month asking why there are no ads on Meduza. And it is - right on the main page.
• And, of course, do not forget that native advertising is material that can also be readable and interesting to the user.

Challenges of native advertising

The first is that sites offering native advertising are asking too much money for placement. Moreover, many sites are trying to sell native advertising as separate special projects, and the budgets are asking for the appropriate ones. However, it is almost impossible to put such advertising on the stream, since you can only put on the stream such a thing that shows excellent results for little money.

The second reason is that many do not know how to cook this dish. Historically, in the media, advertising is separate, and materials are separate. Native advertising is native not just when it looks visually the same, but when it goes in the feed with all other materials, moreover, the intonation inside the advertising materials must be exactly the same.

Otherwise, no one will read your ad, and it will not make sense for the advertiser. But what to do if the advertising materials are not readable? This means that you submit such materials separately from the main content of your resource. Often, advertising is carried out by individual people who are not directly connected with the site itself. As a result, we get another edition, a separate team that makes exclusively promotional materials. And this is wrong.

To start

To start advertising materials, you need several large and high-profile cases that brought employers a lot of profit. After that, confidence both in the format of such advertising and in your project itself will increase, and new advertisers will catch up.

Your site will bear exactly the same responsibility for advertising materials as for any others. Moreover, we are not talking about the legal side of the issue, but only about reputational costs. Writing well about a dubious business is a path to the abyss. In addition, you need to double-check all the information that the advertiser offers you so as not to write outright lies. And the advertisers themselves must be selected very carefully. If in the process of writing advertising material you understand that you are forced to write lies, then it is better to refuse such material.

Meduza, by the way, has two formats of promotional materials. The first is entertainment content, in which the advertised brand is simply mentioned as a sponsor. There is quite a lot of freedom of action, you can do anything and however you like, the way you are used to. The second format of promotional materials involves detailed description the advertiser's product or service, and very meticulous work is needed here. It is necessary to write the material in such a way that it is interesting to the audience, and that the advertised brand is positively deposited in the memory. To write about something that you yourself are not sure about, what you “swim” in, and even more so to openly lie, is almost suicide.

Native advertising is a bad place to experiment. It is better to use the format of materials that you and your audience are used to and that resonates the most. If your infographic is popular, use it. If review materials are popular, then use reviews as a “working advertising format”. If there is no ready-made format for such an advertiser, then the format should be invented; but this should be done with the expectation that in the future this format will also be used as an editorial. Nothing goes to waste. In addition, trying to "pull" advertising material into the format of existing ones will look pathetic, like Hachiko.

Rules of the game

Meduza has created internal rules that separate editorial material from promotional material: different types materials must not reference each other or affect other materials in any way. In addition, the reader must understand which post is promotional and which is not. Otherwise, the visitor will feel deceived, and trust in the site will drop sharply.