An Ethical Framework for Sponsored Content

By: Steve Rubel, Chief Content Strategist, Edelman New York

Edelman’s Chief Content Strategist Steve Rubel was recently interviewed by Bob Garfield of NPR’s ‘On the Media’ about ethically approaching sponsored content. According to Rubel, the main point to keep in mind when working in paid media is to be very transparent about paid versus earned content. Find the full interview below and on OntheMedia.org.

BOB GARFIELD:  Sponsored content is something that's been around for as long as we've had media that need paying for. If you’ve ever watched a television infomercial or read a special advertising section in a fashion magazine, you too have consumed a bit of sponsored content, lately referred to as “native advertising.” And as the news industry continues to struggle for dollars, you will, no doubt, be seeing more and more native advertising alongside the news. This is potentially dangerous territory, as sponsored content is often made to resemble actual content as much as possible.

Steve Rubel is chief content strategist at Edelman, the global public relations firm. He’s authored a new report addressing these very murky public relationships. Remember the uproar earlier this year over a sponsored post about scientology on The Atlantic website? Rubel says he knows why that native advertising puff piece was so jarring. It was in the wrong environment.

STEVE RUBEL:  We had this self-serving positive piece that was next to very thoughtful debate, scholarly sometimes, discourse, and, and it just wasn’t the right fit. It was too distant from what the editorial formats are there already. Now, if it was the Church of Scientology trying to shape a debate around an issue and they had multiple points of view and they basically funded the piece of content and had their, their viewpoint along with others in that mix, I think it would have been a better fit.

BOB GARFIELD:  You describe in your report a number of different ways that branded content or sponsored content can manifest itself. Can you tick down the list of ways that this can be accomplished?

STEVE RUBEL:  So the first is what we’re calling syndication. That is like the scientology example. It is like the advertorial reinvented, where you’re in a site that has a bunch of news articles and somewhere in the middle of that list is a piece of content that the brand or one of their agencies create that sits in that mix. We’re not sure about the long-term viability of that particular format. We think that people will skip over it. They see a piece sponsored content, that might mean don't read.

The second we’re calling integration, and that's the product placement format that worked on TV, reinvented for the Web. We've had one publisher say, we do a list of 10 things you need to know about today. Number 11 could be from you, the sponsor. It’s ideally created in the spirit of what's already on that site. BuzzFeed is one of the more advanced companies here. Their entire business model is to create these many sponsored listicles, if you will, list articles.

BOB GARFIELD:  There is a third category of paid content, paid co-creation. What’s that?

STEVE RUBEL:  That’s actually the cleanest one. That's where a media company wants to have a vertical in an area, say, about the future of business or about family travel, but they don't have the money to cover it. So they will create a special section that isn’t just a one-off, but would live on, on a regular basis. The marketer basically commits, to some degree, to fund that. The media company commits a editorial person to that section that the sponsor has no dialogue with. They are just creating content in that sector, say on the future of business.

We liken it to a baseball stadium where the sponsor comes in and acquires naming rights for, you know, 10 years. And it's the most expensive of the approaches, but it's also probably the most idealistic one, ‘cause there is an equal win for all three parties involved, if it's done well.

BOB GARFIELD:  I had a sickening experience recently, where I appeared on HuffPost Live, the Web TV version of Huffington Post, and the subject was car advertising, or something like that.

FEMALE HOST:  Today we’re continuing our conversation on luxury, and we're talking to some experts and veterans of the marketing and advertising world about reaching different audiences abroad. Joining us in our Google Hangout, we have Bob Garfield, author of Can’t Buy Me Like, and host of NPR’s On The Media and writer for Media Post, David Kiley, editor-in-chief of AOL Autos, Holly Pavlika, senior vice-president of strategy at Collective Bias. And back in the studio with me, we have our friend Jim Vurpillat, the  director of marketing for Cadillac, which is a partner of HuffPost Live and is, of course, a brand that is synonymous with luxury. It’s great to have you all here.
  [END CLIP]

BOB GARFIELD:  It turns out that Cadillac was the sponsor of this piece. It was agreed beforehand that Cadillac would have its people on the piece and that Cadillac cars would be featured within it. And I've been sucked into that dynamic, and it was – uh sickening.

STEVE RUBEL:  All the more reason why having this discussion around ethics is important. It's a matter of just being very clear all around, all sides, not the least of which is the audience, in what is - in what is happening and where and why.

BOB GARFIELD:  So it is all murky but, still and all, you recommend some primary best practices. What are they?

STEVE RUBEL:  So there’s a set of ideals that relate to the creation of the content, the transparency around that and also the process, for people to consider that are mostly for us. We are going to prefer to work with companies that kind of err on the side of disclosure and are really upfront in what is taking place and why. And the media companies, the sales side and the editorial side are very separated. We are going to separate the parts of our business, so we’re going to make sure that people who are working with journalists day-to-day are not also negotiating paid media buys.

BOB GARFIELD:  “Ideals” is a pretty good word because [LAUGHS] they take place in an ideal world. At this moment in the history of native advertising, if you’ll forgive me, the best practices that you’ve promulgated sound to me kind of like pieties that ignore the inherent structural problem [LAUGHS] of advertorial, which, by its very nature, is first trying to exploit borrowed interest from the, the surrounding editorial, you know, a halo effect that it may in no way deserve, and, and, at worst, just  try to trick the reader. You talk about labeling. That is such a classic example of why this may be an insoluble problem.

On the one hand, the marketers want as little labeling as possible, because otherwise people, as you say, skip over the material. And the media are conflicted because they want to accommodate the [LAUGHS] marketers and make the sale. And, therefore, they use just enough disclosure to offer sort of plausible deniability but still make it very easy for readers to be confused, to trick them, in effect. Are, are these problems that can be solved?

STEVE RUBEL:  They have to be solved because the media has no other means to monetize right now. I don't think that this is something that they’re running to because they are excited about it. I think they're running to it because they feel that they need to offset those other financial pressures. And there’s also a cost pressure for them too, is they have to continue to build out for new platforms, like social networks, for example, and mobile that they didn’t have to build out before.
So the solving of this issue is primarily a publisher problem. But we believe that marketers and the public need to also be equal parties to this discussion, because what we all want to see is a viable press that continues to do what it's done for hundreds of years, but maybe finds a way to borrow the best of what has worked on social networks and search engines, as the business model. People there seem to know that those kinds of ads are what's required to support a free service. I feel like it's in everybody's best interest to somehow make this work, if we want to see a, a viable free press.
  [MUSIC UP & UNDER]

BOB GARFIELD:  Steve, thank you very much.

STEVE RUBEL:  Thank you, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD:  Steve Rubel is chief content strategist at the global PR firm, Edelman.

If you are interested in learning more about the evolution of paid and earned media, please contact Katie Gaskin at Katie.Gaskin@edelman.com

The Lines are Blurring

By Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

As I watch the morning news while getting dressed I disgustedly ask myself is this really news or is the network just promoting its next reality show?  As I wait for my mani/pedi to dry, I find myself thumbing through a magazine article on what I think is an article on vitamins and nutrition only to realize, “wait, this is an advertising section.”   As I check my friends’ Tweets in the evening before going to bed, I spy a rainbow Oreo that is creating a firestorm of dialogue and I think to myself, what a smart advertising ploy!

Even for those of us in the business, it’s getting more difficult (at the risk of really dating myself) to know “Is it real or is it Memorex?” This, of course, begs the question of transparency and ethics in the ever-blossoming world of public seduction by savvy marketers.  Listen, I don’t have the answers here - after all I am a marketer who is always looking for new ways my clients can effectively communicate.  But I do know that whatever you call it—paid media, branded content, native advertising - there is a responsible, transparent way of handling sponsored content  so the world  really does understand what is news, what is opinion and what is advertising.  Our job as communicators is to make sure there is clarity in a complex world, not to muck it up so it’s impossible to make an informed decision about what to buy, believe, or even fear. 

So, enjoy this issue of eVolution, where our authors explore this topic from Scientology to Snowden.  Let us know how you’re navigating these muddy waters.  Or, if you’re just diving in to figure it out.

Digital Insight: Five Elements for Real-Time Engagement

By Gina Gretchko, Annie Elzey, Nick Lucido and Bill Mrazek Senior Account Supervisor, Account Supervisor, Senior Account Executive and Assistant Account Executive, Chicago

Real-time engagement efforts are at an all-time high for brands. While it’s difficult to predict the unpredictable or prepare for the unknown, there are many strategies brand teams can utilize to best adapt to changes in social media.

These five considerations will help organize a brand for real-time engagement:

1. Compatibility Between the Opportunity & Brand Objectives
   Evaluate the event or trend in the context of your brand. Can the brand add value to the conversation or offer a unique position? Does the opportunity fit within the brand’s content and engagement strategy? Just because the topic is generating a lot of buzz doesn’t mean it’s relevant to your brand’s audience or warrants involvement on behalf of a brand.
   
   
2. Building the Real-Time Engagement ”Dream Team”
   Pick your players wisely. Day-of, your real-time team should reflect back to your objectives for the program, ensuring every player has a deliberate purpose. Take account of the resources needed to achieve your desired results, and consider various scenarios that could come into play. Carefully arrange the right team of disciplines – from strategy and creative, to legal and brand representatives, to community management – and confirm how much support is required from each. Then, work to ensure the assigned players have a clear picture of expectations and their roles, understanding how each might affect one another. At the end of the day, an integrated approach will avoid missteps in execution and be critical to your success.
   
   
3. Planning with Fluidity
   Eighty percent of the work should be done before the moment takes place. This includes identifying the value your brand can bring to the conversation and how to deliver that value with content. It is possible to produce skeleton creative templates, such as an image that can be quickly manipulated for real-time publishing. The team must be able to adjust pre-planned content to adapt to unforeseen situations, audience reactions and emerging trends. For example, if a Twitter hashtag emerges, a brand team should consider how it fits within the conversation, while adding value. On the contrary, efforts can quickly decline in quality when brands try to force relevance. Successful real-time engagement relies on planning and instinct. In both cases, processes should be put in place to allow for double-checking of plans and instincts before moving forward.
   
   
4. Persistent Measurement
   It’s essential to consider ways to measure your efforts from the get-go. After setting objectives and goals for the activation, consider what the key performance indicators look like. Determining this framework and ensuring you have the people and platforms necessary to obtain this data will help your analysts pull the proper figures in real time. After the activation is complete, consider developing a recap report that includes benchmarks for future activations to help more accurately determine success.
   
   
5. Transparency & Stakeholder Communication
   It goes without saying that brand teams need to constantly communicate changes in strategy and newly discovered opportunities, but it’s crucial to take that a step further and maintain communication with all stakeholders involved (partner agencies, client contacts, brand influencers, etc.). Maintaining communication and transparency throughout activations will ensure a consistent brand voice and messaging, not to mention allows everyone involved to make adjustments when a tactical audible is called.  

These steps will help a brand prepare for real-time engagement opportunities and unearth any unforeseen weaknesses or opportunities.

The Big Hit: TIME for DigitalGlobe

By Abby Van Uum, Account Executive, Austin

The Big Hit is a monthly feature of notable media coverage secured for a client by an Edelman Southwest team member.

After securing a significant hit with TIME last fall, Austin’s Abby Van Uum worked to establish DigitalGlobe, a leading global provider of commercial high-resolution earth imagery products and services, as an ongoing photo resource for the outlet. This relationship paid off several months later when photo editor Jonathan Woods reached out looking for a before/after satellite photo of the conflict in Syria.

Because of the relationship Woods and Van Uum had built up, Abby was able to provide a photo and position Digital Globe’s analysis team as expert sources. The result was a full feature that included client quotes, nine images and a specially-built photo tool that had never before been used by TIME.

“The Destruction of a Nation: Syria’s War Revealed in Satellite Imagery” was TIME’s most-read story online, ultimately reaching nearly 3.6M unique viewers. It was shared 1,400 times on Facebook, 1,304 times on Twitter, and 640 times on Google+.  Now that TIME is familiar with DigitalGlobe’s images and expertise, Abby has helped unlock several additional opportunities with the outlet. The full article can be found here. 

Data Security, Privacy and Reputation

By David Chamberlin, General Manager, Dallas

Over the past several months, data and data security have been at the center of public discourse as a number of stories and scandals have come to light. Three of these stories have made major news. A high profile malicious data breach at Twitter led to more than 250,000 users’ data being compromised. The Chinese military is alleged to be collecting information from both the public and private sectors in the United States, including state secrets and privileged corporate information. Finally, the revelation by activist-whistleblower turned international fugitive Edward Snowden of the National Security Administration’s collecting of domestic phone and internet records through the PRISM program continues to stir controversy today. All of these have played roles in making data, and the risks and costs that unsecured data can pose, a top-of-mind issue. 

The simple fact is that all organizations run the risk of having their data compromised. No matter if a business deals with private financial information, personal health records or a trade secret that provides a competitive advantage, there is a hacker somewhere in the world who sees this valuable information as a potential mark. Data breaches pose major reputational risks to organizations. Breaches that result in the loss of proprietary or confidential business information can make a company look ill-prepared, careless or incompetent and customers expect organizations to safeguard their information.

According to the Ponemon Institute’s ninth annual “Cost of Data Breach Study,” the average data breach in the United States now costs an organization over $5.4 million in a combination of detection, notification, post-breach and lost business costs. Additionally, 41 percent of data breaches in the United States are now the result of criminal or malicious attacks. It is also interesting to note that data breaches in the United States that are result of a malicious attack are 60 percent more costly than those attributed to  a system glitch or human error. 

The study has also been able to determine factors that led to a lower cost of that breach. It’s often said that “poor planning on your part shouldn’t constitute an emergency on mine,” but in the case of a data breach, planning is the principal thing that will save a company money. According to the Ponemon study, organizations that had an “incident response plan” at the time of their breaches saw an average cost that was $42 less than the national average, per compromised record. 

So what does this mean for senior executives? Reputation is one of an organization’s most valuable assets and managing it when a data breach occurs is not about spin and is not a job to be left to the legal department. It is a management function that must begin at the top. When a breach occurs, every interaction must be well planned and aligned, including media interviews, customer and employee outreach, regulator and policymaker interactions and operational decisions. The only ways to mitigate the reputational and financial repercussions of a data breach are, following the Boy Scouts’ lead, to be prepared. 

Media Trends: Native Advertising

By Donya LaHaye, Mike Shriner and Carolyn Pilkington Account Supervisor, Senior Account Supervisor and Vice President, New York

Storytelling, journalism and advertising have evolved significantly over the past decade, resulting in many new tools to effectively tell stories. Accordingly, there’s been a paradigm shift in how forward-thinking agencies and clients generate content and interact with their target publics.

Native advertising, a method in which the advertiser provides content in the context of the user's experience, is the new model for advertising online. Take the recent Buzzfeed post, “15 Reasons Why Cats Are the Most Fearless Creatures,” for example. It appears similarly to other Buzzfeed content, but is actually a Target ad for pet food and toys. Another example is found in Forbes BrandVoice content, sponsored articles such as “Artistic Entrepreneurs Fuel the Creative Economy - It takes a community...,” which appear as other Forbes articles but are native ads.

Media outlets including the New York Times, FOX News and more are turning to native advertising for sponsored content that will hold viewers’ attention, and it’s an area Edelman is pushing head-first into. 

Here are some tips on how to do it successfully:

• Don’t be intrusive, but create a value exchange with consumers. Create something that people want to experience and that touches or entertains them versus something they have to endure.
• Play to a platform’s clearest and purest intention, and deliver your brand message in a way that’s organic to that platform/location.
• Participate in spaces that are authentic to the brand and to the audience.
• Be transparent when you’re advertising, not deceptive, or you break the social contract with consumers. For example, don’t try to disguise an advertorial or paid content as editorial, as 58% of people find sponsored stories misleading and lose trust in a brand as a result.
• Content is only as valuable as the strategy to push it out, which platforms you push to and who helps push it out.
• The media landscape is only going to be more cluttered. It’s increasingly important to be diligent about the story we tell, why it matters, why we have the right to tell the story, who we are telling it to and how we are telling it.

Begin It Now

By: Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

I just got back from Edelman’s Global Leadership meeting in Germany where our own fearless leader, Richard Edelman, did a brilliant job of articulating where we as a company are headed. As the world’s largest public relations firm, we take very seriously our role in continuing to raise standards and evolving our industry to better serve our clients in relevant, strategic, effective and creative ways that mirror marketplace needs and propel us all forward.

Vision is a tough, risky business. It’s definitely not for sissies. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds and even easier to rest on our laurels. We should be diligent about looking at our work and core values through a different lens periodically, but the details of life often get in the way.

That’s where we all have a role to play. Far too often in organizations, vision is seen as the playground of top leadership only. It’s easy to defer to others rather than taking on the vision mantle ourselves, owning it and acting on ideas that may make some uncomfortable. The truth is that the people we most admire didn’t start out as leaders; Henry Ford and Steve Jobs were just regular Joes like the rest of us. They just stepped up to the plate as visionaries and boldly took us all forward.

My favorite words to live by come from the German philosopher Goethe and say it better than I ever could: “Whatever you do, or dream, begin it now.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

And vision I might add. Our time to step up to the plate is now.