The Crumbling of Church vs. State

September 16, 2007 | Written by Yan Shikhvarger

And I don’t mean in terms of politics and religion, but the divide between editorial and advertising. That line does appear to being blurred more and more often. The most recent example occurred this week as a Yahoo homepage feature story on the "fall styles" actually drove to an "article" that only mentioned Banana Republic’s new line and was also surrounded by Banana Republic banner ads.

Ad or Editorial?

The list of such examples goes on and on and is not just limited to online. WebMD magazine runs prescription drug ads as well as unbranded disease condition questionnaires in the same issue, and reality TV builds whole shows around sponsored products (Top Chef and Bertolli for example).

Of course this is all due to decline in attention paid to traditional advertising and the trend of mixing "church and state" is not likely to decline as publishers need to satisfy stockholders. Something for both marketers and consumers to look for but for different reasons.