Debating the Changing Economics of Editorial Content

As the 10th annual Advertising Week in New York began, speakers and panelists were paying a good deal of attention to what appears in between ads — aka editorial content — as well as to the ads themselves.

The focus on content creation was partly related to content’s being part of a major trend on Madison Avenue known as content marketing or native advertising, which seeks to skirt consumers’ aversion to being pitched by dressing up ads to resemble articles or programs. “For most of the last 200 years, advertising has been defined in tandem with journalistic content,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which is holding its MIXX Conference and Expo 2013 during the first two days of Advertising Week. As a result, he added, “the changing economics of content” ought to concern the advertising and marketing industries.