New York Times tests native advertising on Mashable

Count The New York Times among the throngs of companies testing the native advertising waters.

The company actually started running native ads on sites like The Awl and Gothamist last spring, but not it’s moved to the venerable Mashable.

One example is “11 Inspiring Videos That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity,” which contains an entertaining collection of NY Times feature videos.

An NYT spokeswoman told Capital New York, “We have launched a fully integrated, content-driven media and marketing campaign designed to promote the launch of Times Video by elevating highly engaging creative assets, strategic messaging and content through a series of effective and highly-targeted channels.”

Native ads, for the uninitiated, are essentially articles created and penned by or on behalf of a company or a brand (or, in the Times‘ case, a publication) and placed on a legitimate content publisher’s site. It’s clear—or at least it should be—that the consumer is looking at sponsored content and not an article penned by an objective journalist.