Picking on the words: native

Those of you in the content marketing space probably know where this is headed, but I want to challenge the way we use the word native more broadly than just in terms like native advertising.

So what is native, really?

Dictionaries say it’s a term that refers to a local inhabitant; something or someone that’s innate, not acquired. Based on that definition, very little about what we use the word for today fits at all.

Native software, for example, refers to programs that are created for or supported by a specific operating system (not typically those that were there to begin with). That’s a miss.

Native Americans refers to the people Europeans encountered when they discovered the so-called ‘new world’ they named America. How can you be native to a ‘new’ place that someone else has given a new name? They were certainly native, but I doubt they would consider themselves Americans. Miss.

And, finally, native advertising refers to messages created by a publisher to essentially deceive its audience by camouflaging a story from a brand to look as if it’s part of the publication.

Oops.

As expected, while there are some pretty big offenders in the use of the word, native advertising clearly wins.

Perhaps that’s what we should expect when combining a publishing industry desperate for some way — any way —to survive in the digital world they didn’t adapt to quickly enough with brands that are equally desperate for some way to stand out.

Expected? Perhaps. Does that make it okay? Absolutely not.

Tricking people who are not just your customers but also your greatest assets is more than offensive, it’s downright stupid. In fact, I’m not sure who’s more to blame here…the publishers who haven’t adapted and feel forced to take this path or die; or the brands who are clearly leveraging a short term gain in spite of those who would be their customers. Maybe both?

The bottom line is that native advertising is neither native nor advertising. And hiding behind a term that is deliberately nebulous to extract a short-term gain is cowardly and both the publishers and the brands that are participating should be called out for doing so.

But we probably won’t need to worry about that.

Today’s consumers are empowered, connected and smart. In the long run, they will understand (and remember) which publishers and brands are taking advantage of them currently through native advertising.

So what can these publishers and brands do? Not much.

Smart consumers know they are in charge and the publishers and brands attempting to fool them today through native advertising probably won’t be around too much longer to worry about it.

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