SOLUTION
With newsrooms, such as the LA Times, forming unions, and telecom giants, like Sinclair, buying up local news stations across the country, the lack of transparency in the business of journalism is a growing issue. Platforms like BuzzFeed, the BBC, and the New York Times run internal teams responsible for native advertising, bringing issues around transparency, disclosure, and the dreaded fake news designation to the forefront of the advertisement debate.
While all of these topics are important, we’re going to focus on the native content issue for the project. One of the biggest issues we wanted to address are the design decisions behind the way publications show that content is sponsored. Often they use small, light fonts, hidden or difficult to access disclosure statements, and lack of clear brand identification.
The lack of transparency around the flows of money, and the influence that money might have on news content and the trustworthiness of a publication contribute to fears of fake news and opposition to “mainstream media.” We suggest that news platforms adopt policies in order to clearly address these fears. In the meantime, consumers need a tool they can easily use and access. There are existing solutions, like ad-blockers and reader-mode settings, but both of those things only eliminate banner and pop-up ads. Many disclosure statements designed in-house end up being misleading, or they lack the transparency that audiences deserve.
In 2019, these practices need to change. Consumers are hyper aware of advertising, and attempts to sneak ads into journalism are confusing at best, alienating and misleading at worst. Our industry can do better, and we hope that this tool will get the ball rolling on more universal disclosure practices in sponsored content.
PRODUCT
Our team designed a chrome extension that notifies users of information on sponsored content or posts published on digital platforms. The tool pops up on a webpage when it detects paid advertisement. It provides information on compensation and fees, and on the individuals and entities that produced and developed the advertisement, as well as identifying the involvement, or lack of involvement, of reporting staff in the project.
AUDIENCE
The product is for readers who get their news from the internet. Since it's a browser extension, which is not applicable to mobile devices, our audience is narrowed down further to individuals who primarily read their news on a desktop.
PROTOTYPE
The widget will spin around when it detects sponsored content.
If you hover over it when it isn't spinning, a pop up window about the widget will come up.
If you click on it when it is spinning, a pop up window will tell you it is sponsored content
To read more about the sponsored content, click on "What is this?"
PROCESS
We began this project by exploring how transparency can be presented in terms of visual design, and focused on developing the best way to make the information easily digestible. We addressed this issue by designing the extension to be manually controlled by the user. If they would like to know more about the piece, they can simply click the Tidget logo in the top right corner of the browser.
Through our research we looked at how a handful of publications format sponsored content on their sites. We were interested in the partnerships between brands, and we found that newsrooms often have a design team that works between their editorial and advertising departments to create ads based on editorial content, or partner with external advertisers.
The primary example we focused on was T Brand Studio, the in-house advertising branch for The New York Times. Content published by the studio resembles a multimedia Times article, accompanied with photos, text, video, and interactive visual elements. Typically, these articles are tailored to the interests and products of their advertisers, including an article on better time management sponsored by Slack, and multiple articles sponsored by Netflix to promote shows and other content. The Netflix example includes articles on hard news issues, like mass incarceration, to promote the documentary, “13th,” and the series “Orange is the New Black.
This process was divided into four parts: research, visual design, prototyping, and feedback. Each element was designated to team members and members were responsible for providing feedback on each others contribution. Early task management was handled using a shared Google Drive folder and spreadsheet, but we transitioned to Trello in the final week of development. We also held several Google Hangout meetings and communicated regularly via Slack.
To download Tidget, visit our website! This is the download page.
The 'Archive' lists all the companies who use our widget.
The about page talks more about what sponsored content is. It has three sections as marked by the lines on the right, which can be used to navigate through.