Report: 1/3 of news consumers say they’ve been ‘deceived’ by native advertising
Reuters’ 2015 Digital News Report found that a large group of readers are leery of the model, though they regard it as a fact of life.
News consumers aren’t too keen about native advertising.
According to Reuters’ 2015 Digital News Report, half of respondents say they flat out don’t like sponsored content, and a third say they’ve been outright “disappointed or deceived” by it. About 25 percent said seeing a sponsored article in a news publication makes them feel worse about that news brand.
That’s the bad news for brand managers looking to win consumers over with native ads in news publications. Here’s the good news: Whether they like it or not, consumers are increasingly seeing that sponsored content is a fact of life.
Perhaps that’s because they’re aware that news organizations have shrinking revenue options. In the United States, nearly half of news consumers use ad-blocking software, and another 30 percent simply ignore ads. More than two-thirds of U.S. respondents said they wouldn’t pay for news, whatever the price. Similar numbers said the same thing in the United Kingdom and Australia.
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