If you’re anything like me, you tend to avoid clicking on the “sponsored content.” In a Google search, the sponsored results are the ones that appear at the top of the page. They look almost like normal search results but they’re really advertisements related to what you searched for. Ads. From companies. In a news or media site, sponsored content are articles/videos that look normal but are also paid for by the companies selling the product featured in the article/video.

[One of these things is not like the others!]

Sponsored content is mostly annoying and not useful. But at least it’s labeled “sponsored” which makes weeding it out for the ad that it is much easier.

If only all marketing messages in life (digital and otherwise) had to be labeled “sponsored”! That would be so fantastic. But it’s sadly not the case. Instead, we have to navigate all arenas of modern life and ask, “How is this sponsored content?” But the more you do it, the more informed a consumer you will become. This is especially useful when applied to things that are pitched as “common knowledge” in your circles.

For example, when an article about weddings insinuates that EVERYONE starts planning their weddings 18 months out, is that really because it CANNOT be done in 12 or 6 or 3 months or was that sponsored content? Is that article trying to help YOU out or trying to help out the wedding industry which knows that people who start planning 18 months from the big day are drastically more likely to outspend their 6-month counterparts?

Or how about this: when your Facebook feed is lined with PSAT prep course sales, is that because organizations want your high school freshman to succeed or is it because the SAT is owned by College Board whose annual revenue tops out just south of a billion dollars?

Ask, ask, ask. “Is this sponsored content?”

Source: WBQ Original

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