Bound to Come: Gawker Finally Goes Full Advertorial
For a long time now, Gawker has been playing with various forms of ad content. It did it’s blood vampire blog thing, amongst others. And then it began inserting ads that looked like blog posts; though these inclusions always clearly labeled “advertisement”and the color coding (outside Fleshbot) was always a slightly darker shade than the editorial posts. But throughout, its ads have always, if barely, been distinguishable as ads.
Well, no more.
Gizmodo (and maybe others) is now running posts that are labeled “promotion,” under the same color tag as the editoiral posts, that link to what is essentially an giant ad for Johnnie Walker Blue Label. The “Gawker Luxury Gift Guide” even recommends, under a giant Johnnie Walker Blue Label ad banner, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.
Oh, but you say it’s just a legitimate editorial gift guide sponsored by Johnnie Walker? Then why is the “Check it out!” link over from the post to the guide have an “ad.doublelclik.net…” tag? Because it is straight-up advertorial, that’s why.
It turns out the post does have a “sponsored post” tag. You see it there way down on the lower right, floating between two posts almost as if it doesn’t want to associate itself with anything specific?