Who Should Regulate Native Advertising?

Native advertising is being heralded as the savior of digital publishing, but as marketers' content treads increasingly on editorial ground, one of the big questions is: How should it be regulated?

To hear top marketers and ad execs, the issue is far from resolved. The Wonderfactory co-founder and creative director Joe McCambley argued that publishers can’t allow advertising to mingle with content unimpeded. But Forbes Media COO Mike Federle contended that it should be consumers, not institutions like the American Society of Magazine Editors or the Federal Trade Commission, that set the guidelines for how native advertising is presented. Added LiquidThread North America president Brent Poer, “How puritanical are we? Should we put a scarlet letter ‘A’ on all native advertising?”