What is native advertising?
Native advertising is advertising that takes the form of the place it runs. On a news site it looks like an article; in a social feed it looks like a post; on a streaming service it might be a short film or a branded segment. It is clearly labeled as sponsored, but it follows the editorial format around it rather than interrupting it, so the reader experiences it the way they experience everything else on the platform.
The term covers a wide range: in-feed sponsored posts, promoted listings, recommendation widgets and, at the ambitious end, articles and films made by publishers' own branded content studios to the standard of their editorial. That higher end overlaps with branded content, the difference being mostly about where it runs and who distributes it.
Why it matters
Why native advertising matters
It gets read. People have learned to ignore banners, but content that matches what they came for earns attention, and native placements regularly outperform standard display on engagement. For brands with a story that takes more than a headline to tell (a heritage, a craft, a point of view), native formats give them the space and the setting to tell it, along with the credibility of appearing beside respected editorial.
That credibility is borrowed, so it has to be respected. Audiences and regulators expect native advertising to be clearly disclosed, and anything that tricks a reader damages both the brand and the publisher.
In practice
How native advertising works in practice
- 01
At the simple end, a brand buys in-feed or promoted placements through a platform or a native ad network, supplying a headline, an image and a link, and the system formats them to fit each site. At the ambitious end, a brand commissions a publisher's content studio or an agency to make a piece built for that publisher's audience: an article, a series, a film. The publisher's team brings its editorial voice and audience knowledge; the brand brings the subject and the budget.
- 02
Either way, the work is labeled as sponsored, distributed through the publisher's channels and promoted to extend its reach. Success is measured on attention (time spent, completion rates, scroll depth) and on brand outcomes such as recall and consideration, more than on clicks.
At RIOT
Native advertising at RIOT
We have made films for WSJ Custom Content, The Wall Street Journal's branded content studio, and a film series for Sotheby’s International Realty and RESIDE Magazine. Both work the native way: a story told in the voice and craft of the platform, with the brand as the reason the piece exists rather than the interruption in the middle of it.
Watch out
What people get wrong about native advertising
Thinking native means disguised. The point is not to fool anyone into reading an ad; it is to make an ad worth reading. Clear labels do not hurt good native work, and hiding them hurts everyone. The other mistake is writing a press release and calling it content. If the piece would not interest the publisher's readers without the brand's money behind it, the format is native but the content is still an ad, and readers will treat it like one.
