Native advertising - articles paid for and / or written by a brand that appear on a publisher's site - has emerged as a powerful and popular new marketing content tool over the past few years . Media companies such as BuzzFeed , The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , and The Atlantic have all invested heavily in the creation and distribution of native advertisements ( also called sponsored content ) on behalf of brands , with many charging more than $ 100,000 for a native advertising campaign . Such sponsored content is designed to blend with the look and feel of the other content on a site , and written disclosures such as " Sponsored " or " Advertisement " are often hard to see even if consumers are looking for them . So it's no surprise that consumers often can't tell the difference between paid brand content and regular articles . Marketing content agency Contently recently surveyed adult consumers , showing them one brand sponsored online content piece from The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The Atlantic , The Onion , BuzzFeed , or Forbes or an actual article on Whole Foods in Fortune . In four out of the six groups shown a native advertisement , a strong majority said they thought the ad was an article .

15-11 Search the internet to find examples of native advertising or other sponsored content . Could such content mislead consumers ? Are companies responsible for ensuring consumers understand and can distinguish between sponsored content and other content ?