WSJ enters native advertising field

The Wall Street Journal is jumping on the native ad bandwagon with the launch of a new content division, WSJ. Custom Studios, reports Lucia Moses of Adweek.

Moses writes, “The division will offer the Journal’s first native ad product, Narratives, which will first appear March 11 with a three-month-long campaign for Brocade.

“However, Robin Riddle, who joined the Journal last April as publisher of WSJ Custom Content, won’t be overseeing it; he’s moving to another, as-yet unknown sales role there. The announcement of the studio’s launch was made by Trevor Fellows, global head of ad sales at the Journal.

“‘Creative content, including infographics and enhanced video, is a key element of our clients’ marketing strategies,’ Fellows said in the announcement. ‘We are pleased to launch an innovative, intelligent and flexible suite of capabilities that will help market-leading brands develop even deeper relationships with their clients and our readers, the world’s most important decision makers.’

“The Journal said that Narratives content will be created by the studios and ‘clearly and compellingly’ delineated from the paper’s editorial content. One of the problems with native advertising is the lack of agreement on what it is (and whether it’s a new format at all or just advertorials in a new package).”

Read more here.