‘Native Advertising’ Just Celebrated Its 3rd Birthday as Buzzword, so Here’s a Fun Infographic

Anyone who tells you that native advertising is a modern phenomenon is lying; article-lookalike advertorials in print magazines have been around for over a century, and Google search ads—the grandaddy of native ads online—were a key component in monetizing the early web.

But as a buzzword, “native advertising” is a baby. Before Fred Wilson broke out the term at OMMA Global three years ago, it was as foreign a term to many people in the media and marketing as #YOLO. (Oh, how times have changed.)

To celebrate the birthday of this buzzword that has taken over our lives in strange and mildly irksome ways, Sharethrough created a fun infographic tracing how it’s grown up. As you’ll notice, Sharethrough placed itself right in the middle of native advertising’s evolution, because, well… this infographic is a piece of native advertising, too.