As mobileStorm‘s Digital Marketing Blog recently covered in ample detail, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK) has just released what it’s calling new guidelines that outline “good practice” in relation to the disclosure of advertising and marketing communications for native distribution formats online.
So far, the IAB has dropped part one of the guidelines, which are designed to help the marketing industry provide more transparency to consumers around ‘native’ advertising.
“The guidelines provide advertisers, publishers, agencies and advertising technology companies with clear and practical steps to make it easier for consumers to spot native advertising – digital ad formats designed to look and feel like editorial content,” the IAB UK said in a news release.
Supported by ISBA, the Association for Online Publishers (AOP) and the Content Marketing Association (CMA), the guidelines meet the UK advertising industry’s CAP code, which is enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Although the guidelines are quite comprehensive, two of the key guidelines for native advertising formats are:
- Provide consumers with prominently visible visual cues enabling them to immediately understand they are engaging with marketing content compiled by a third party in a native ad format which isn’t editorially independent (e.g. brand logos or design, such as fonts or shading, clearly differentiating it from surrounding editorial content)
- It must be labeled using wording that demonstrates a commercial arrangement is in place (e.g. ‘paid promotion’ or ‘brought to you by’).
To review the guidelines in full, download the document from the IAB here.
