Associated Press creates native advertising dept - move over and share the pie ad agencies.

The Associated Press joins the Turner Network and their news arm CNN with native ad department Courageous, in making a branded content division for AP. Having 'content' creators sell their skills as a branded entertainment creator isn't new, every large media property from Buzzfeed to Gawker has been doing it pretty much since their inception, witch Gawker getting one third of its revenue from native ads. This is why you should install AdDetector and watch for product creep on your fave TV shows.

The AP, unlike CNN and Buzzfeed, is a wire service. News services used to subscribe to wire services, if the local paper couldn't afford to have someone stationed in Canada, they'd get the AP wire service. Now that there's competition from Reuters, and newspapers have been giving up their subscriptions to AP services, despite teh AP becoming ever more flexible in how to subscribe and cutting their prices.


The native advertising service idea grew out of another service AP has, “AP Assignments” produces high-quality photographic and video material for brands to build into theor own marketing materials.  “It’s not so much an ad agency shop as a photography and video shop,” Caluori said to IBT. “A small agency within the AP, and the work is obviously not done by AP’s reporters.”

Advertising is dead, newspapers are dead, banners are dead. Long live the 30 second commercial.