Lisa attentively pays attention to the posts her network of friends and family have posted today on Facebook. After all, this is the best way of getting her news and connecting with what’s going on in the world. In fact, Lisa usually only gets her news from Facebook and Twitter anyways. She always makes sure to stay connected with her favorite brands and publishers. Lisa loves when she gets live updates—it makes her feel like an insider.

Today’s feed features the usual content: cute dog videos, funny memes, happy birthday wishes, inspirational quotes, vacation pictures, and how-to-cook videos.

As Lisa scrolls down her Facebook feed, she watches a cute dog video (of course), shares the funny meme, comments “Happy b-day!” and loves the inspirational quote.

Then, Lisa comes across a suggested post by The Gap. Lisa notices her friends Amanda and Marc both like The Gap. The post features the top five fashion trends for the summer. The post has many likes, loves, wows, and even angry faces as well as comments and shares. Eager for more information, she clicks the

“learn more” button. Lisa loves the styles she sees on the landing page and adds a pair of denim jeans and a bright yellow crop top to her cart and checks out shortly.........

Discussion Questions 

1. How would you classify social media in-feed ads?
2. How are social media in-feed ads different from display ads and organic social ads?
3. Why is Lisa more likely to click on the call to action for a social media infeed ad than a display ad?
4. Do you think Lisa noticed the Facebook suggested post by The Gap was a native ad? Why? If she did, do you think she thought it was deceptive?
5. Based on your own experiences with native advertising, how do you believe native advertising should be regulated?
6. Imagine you are creating disclosure language standards. Describe how you would create the disclosure language standards in terms of visual cues and text labels.