Is Forbes Putting Its Editorial Soul on the Block?

on September 27, 2010

It’s no secret by now that many publishers — particularly those with traditional print publications — are trying just about anything to boost revenue online, including pop-ups, interstitials, site takeovers and everything else under the sun. But Forbes magazine seems to be pushing the envelope in a different direction: As part of an overall shakeup and site redesign, the company has reportedly been flogging the idea of branded blogs to advertisers, offering to give them a spot right next to the magazine’s existing journalistic content.

The idea comes from the newly hired Lewis Dvorkin, a former Forbes editor who rejoined the magazine recently after it acquired his media-related startup True/Slant. According to Advertising Age magazine, Dvorkin has been making sales calls to major advertisers in Detroit, among other places, along with Chief Revenue Officer Kevin Gentzel. The voices of advertisers “can commingle under the Forbes brand umbrella to provide a rich experience for our users,” Gentzel told the magazine. “If an auto manufacturer is in the midst of a new-car launch and has a great story behind the creation of a high-performing engine, they should be able to tell it and to stream into our tech topic flow, or automotive topic flow.”

The idea that advertisers might want to put their branded content as close as possible to traditional journalistic content is as old as publishing itself. The “advertorial” sections that appear in printed newspapers and magazines are driven by exactly that desire, and the fact that they try to mimic the actual journalistic content as closely as possible makes it obvious how much advertisers and marketers would like readers to confuse one for the other (at the newspaper I worked for, there were repeated disagreements over whether advertisers could use the exact same typeface as the editorial content or not).

[inline-pro-content] The rise of blogs and micro-blogging tools like Twitter has given advertisers and marketers a new platform for their content, and companies like the new SAY Media — formed from the combination of advertising platform VideoEgg and blogging pioneer Six Apart — are pitching exactly that to major brands. There’s no question that the line between advertising and non-advertising content continues to blur, thanks to the web. But what Forbes wants to do is to effectively transfer some of its brand value to those marketing-related blogs, and that risks damaging the trust readers have in the magazine.

This isn’t something that only journalists are concerned about, interestingly enough: The Ad Age article quotes Chris Perry, the CEO of digital at public relations giant Weber Shandwick as saying that he’s also worried about the potential impact on the Forbes brand: “Is it a genius move or does it permanently tarnish the brand and credibility of the outlet?” he said. Others have pointed to the recent furor over a blog at the respected website ScienceBlogs that was written by — and about — PepsiCo and its food division. As a result of what they saw as a blurring of the line between marketing messages and real content, other ScienceBlogs writers quit the site, and readers complained as well.

Forbes and Dvorkin say the advertising blogs they are working on will be clearly distinguished from their other blogs, but even so, there is a very real risk of the gray area between sponsored and traditional content becoming a giant ethical morass, both for readers and advertisers — and that’s not going to do anyone any good. Ironically, blurring the line between advertising and editorial content can actually damage the brand that those advertisers are so eager to rub up against, defeating the whole purpose of the exercise. It’s not surprising that Forbes is looking for alternative ways of raising revenue, but it should be careful not to sell its soul at the same time.

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Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Rick Audet