Brands

Content Catchup: Sponsored Content’s Trust Problem, the End of Measurement Tyranny, and More Must-Read Stories

If you read five stories this week, read these five. Why? Well, for starters, I’m the editor of this magazine, and I’ll feel like a success if you do. (I may even get a raise.) Plus, these stories are pretty darn awesome and useful. It’s one of those situations where you scratch my back, I scratch yours, you yelp, “Not so hard, I have sunburn there!” and then I scratch softer. Totally confused by this post so far? Good, let’s dive in.

Study: Sponsored Content Has a Trust Problem

The entire media world is totally jazzed on sponsored content and its potential to help them escape from the undesirable business of banner ads. Pretty much everyone is doing this:

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But according to a study we conducted at Contently this week, two-thirds of readers have felt deceived upon realizing that a piece of content was sponsored by an advertiser, and the majority of consumers (54 percent) don’t trust sponsored content that runs on news sites.

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When we dug into the numbers, things got even more fascinating. Read it.

Is It Good Enough That People Trust Sponsored Content More Than Fox News and BuzzFeed?

Contently co-founder Shane Snow gave his own take on our study, noting how readers rated branded content as more trustworthy than BuzzFeed or Fox News and that content has a trust issue overall in the digital age. He also breaks down how media companies, brands, and readers should respond. Read it.

How to Be a Marketer, According to Stock Photography

If you’re in the mood for something far more ridiculous, Contently star intern Jillian Richardson breaks down how to be a marketer… at least according to the stock photos we make her look through all day.

Joining a marketing team can be intimidating. You’re supposed to help your clients get more paying customers. What happens if you fail? Understandably, you feel a little out of your comfort zone—you were a humanities major, after all. Luckily, with every problem comes a solution. And the solution to your problem is easy—you just need to look at some stock photography. Read it.

The Best Branded Content of June

In June, brands created content that was sophisticated, thought-provoking, and completely ridiculous (a dildo fight PSA, and one video that featured lines like “Do you know how hard it is to find a uterus piñata?” and “You’re missing the vagician!”) Read it.

The Pageview’s Reign of Terror Is Ending, but Will We Elect Another Dictator?

Everyone hates the pageview… but they also want another metric to worship. Unfortunately, there probably isn’t any magic metric to look to—which is an idea that didn’t sit terribly well with marketers at the Contently Summit. Read it.

Make your life 0.3 percent better by following @JoeLazauskas and @Contently on Twitter.

Image by AP Images

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