This Is The Perfect Response To People Trashing Native Advertising

Native advertising is a hot buzzword in ad tech right now. It's even made its way into the mainstream media.

John Oliver ripped native advertising apart in a segment for his HBO show "Last Week Tonight." He argues paid-for posts, which are woven into content and look like normal content, trick readers and damage a publisher's credibility.

People within the industry responded quickly to Oliver's comments, challenging his point of view. Chris Dixon, former CEO of the website Hunch and partner at Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted about native ads after being asked how he felt about the ads being labeled "dishonest."

Here's his response.

@fromedome Are TV ads trickery? Only if you made the ad look just like the show. The key is ads need to be compelling content just like TV.

- Chris Dixon (@cdixon) August 12, 2014

Dixon argues TV has been doing the same thing for a long time, creating commercials that feel just like the show you were watching. As long as publishers use native ads to share relevant stories with readers, he doesn't have a problem with it.