What is Native Advertising? What is GV's policy on Native Ads?

What is "native advertising" in Grand Valley Magazine? New-and-here-to-stay media content category is what it is.

Editorial and advertising have been, for the most part, the two clear-and-different bastions of media for well over 100 years; complete with physical walls separating them. A symbiotic love-hate relationship.

But recently, especially with magazines, the editorial and advertising folks got together and a hybrid of the two, known now as native advertising, was born. Still in such
infancy that it is creating all kinds of philosophical conundrums in the backrooms of publishers and advertisers as they grapple with this strange and curious hybrid.

We absolutely love it at GV Magazine.

Advertorials

Advertorials have been around for ages. Advertorial is an "Advert"isement presented in an edi"torial" format. They are one or more pages produced by an advertiser (or their agency) to tell their story in an editorial format but with the addition of their logo. The advertiser/agency has full control over its content, images, layout, and design. The advertorial pages must clearly indicate that they are paid pages and not editorial pages. We print the following statement at the top or bottom of advertorials in GV Magazine: This is a Paid Advertisement.

Advertorials are wonderful opportunities for advertisers to tell their stories in a reader-friendly format.

Native Advertising

Native advertising, on the other hand, at least in GV Magazine’s policy, is similar to advertorial in that the advertiser pays for it. But that’s where the two advertising types diverge.

With native advertising the advertiser actually partners with the publication so that the publication takes the creative and editorial lead rather than the advertiser, yes even though the advertiser pays for it. This ensures that the piece is cohesive with the rest of the publication and that it has been given editorial care and attention. Our writers and photographers and editor and designers. In essence, the advertiser pays more, but has less creative and editorial control; the reader then knows that the publication staff wrote and presented the story with the reader in mind -- even though the advertiser or sponsor paid for it.

And the advertiser knows he/she is getting a more objective and journalistic approach to the feature designed into the overall look and feel of the magazine.

Sponsorships of pages or features are also forms of native advertising. A university could sponsor an education-related feature, for example. An outdoor business could sponsor a regular adventure feature.

Rather than “This is a Paid Advertisement” at the top of the page (as is standard for advertorial), you will see at the top of a GV native advertising feature: This GV Magazine native advertising feature was photographed by [photographer name], written by GV Magazine staff, and paid for by [company name].

We love both native advertising and advertorials because both offer tremendous opportunity to share more stories through reader-centric advertising.

Native advertising is an exciting new hybrid content category. Yep. We love it.