Outbrain tightens rules on overly commercial content marketing
Content marketing platform Outbrain has updated its guidelines on the type of content from brands it will guide readers to.
The Outbrain widget
Outbrain provides the widget that sits under stories on news websites including those of Fairfax Media and News Corp and entices readers to click on brand-created content elsewhere on the web.
The company then shares revenue with the publishers based on brands paying for the clicks.
Under the updated guidelines, links that drive to commercials, infomercials, advertising copy or self-promotional content will not be permitted into the system.
Along with the new guidelines, the platform has put in place a number of other initiatives including a tool that gives publishers the power to make decisions about content links on their sites and allows them to exclude links as they see fit. It has also put in place headline restrictions with the aim of clamping down on “misleading, sensation or too-good-to-be-ture claims, aggressive marketing and sales language”.
Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai said in a statement: “Maintaining reader trust has and always will be our number one priority. As the industry recognises the promise of content discovery, we believe that, in order to create a long-term and sustainable future, the industry must abide by one simple premise – content recommendations should point to genuine content that is valuable to the reader.
“We believe that these are guiding principles which the entire industry, including publishers and our counterparts, should adopt. Placing audience satisfaction and trust first and foremost will future-proof our whole industry for growth.”
Outbrain’s Australian boss Ayal Steiner said: “In Australia, over the past 12 months we have witnessed a significant movement towards the production of branded content. Australian brands, across different industries, are shifting their digital focus to content marketing, in the shape of content hubs, native articles and custom videos. We love working with partners who leverage trustworthy content and help them reach interested audiences.”
In the UK, the ad watchdog has shown an interest in the operations of Outbrain. The UK advertising watchdog ruled Outbrain links on The Independent’s website were not clearly enough labelled as paid-for advertising.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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If “self-promotional content” is banned then content created by all brands is f***ed surely?
The eToro ad in the example above is definitely that.
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Honestly these links are rarely relevant to me. Contextly.com and similar ought to eat their lunch, if they can accurately determine what the best links to recommend actually are, instead of promoting the random stuff Outbrain serves up.
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With all the hyperventilating about marketing content it should come as no surprise that it has been created for decades:
http://www.adnews.com.au/adnew.....ng-changed
Nothing has changed. We just more tools now and far too many buzzwords pretending to be bright new shiny things!
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@Anonymous: Fair comment. and I agree that a lot of content out there is too self-serving. We work closely with many brands and agencies that produce great content. Informative, insightful and entertaining. If the content is done well, reader’s don’t mind if the content is coming from a brand.
@Tim: We try our best and work hard to make sure readers discover great stories that are relevant for them. I am sorry to learn you feel some stories are less relevant… we always strive to learn and will forever aim to improve and grow our index of promoted stories with content that really add value to readers.
@Tony: You are absolutely right…Content Marketing is anything but new 🙂 the way to discover / distribute content has seen several interesting innovations in the digital space as readers shift to digital and specifically to mobile and social.
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I think having standards like these are very important when distributing paid content. There is nothing worse than clicking on a headline that has nothing to do with the content.
Way to go, Outbrain!
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great move by Outbrain and I see this as a win for consumers of online news.
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