Why the rise of native advertising isn’t a threat to PR

This article first appeared on PR Daily in September, 2015. On a recent trip to New York, I took the opportunity to attend a digital publishing summit that brought together key digital players including The Huffington Post, The Onion, Buzzfeed and others to discuss trends in publishing. I was interested to learn more about how the media landscape is changing as a result of digital.

Changing reader habits, geared towards a preference for consuming media online and through devices, have led to the decline of print and a subsequent decline in revenue for media outlets. Unsurprisingly, the number one issue up for discussion at the conference was revenue models, most predominately native advertising.

Is the wall between editorial and advertising coming down?

Many critics suggest that native advertising has led to one of the most significant shifts of our times, the gradual breakdown of the wall that used to exist between editorial and advertising. Editorial has never stood completely independent (after all we have a whole industry, public relations, which has given interest groups a platform through editorial), the line has certainly begun to blur.