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"This latest Advertising Age Research Report, Social Media Advertising, looks at what's worked and what hasn't when it comes to paid social-media advertising, and what marketers should be trying as they experiment on emerging platforms like Instagram and Pinterest."

"This is the first part of a four-part series on native advertising. Part 2: "Publishers become content producers." Part 3: "How ethical is native advertising?" Part 4: "Future of native advertising""

" Despite dramatic changes in the form, the basic premise of advertising has remained unchanged-strangers with an agenda attempt to co-opt your attention and guide your thoughts. But technology has fundamentally changed the extent to which we experience advertising. Empowered by technology's inexorable expansion into every facet of our lives, modern advertising has become so ubiquitous that it is unavoidable. Every new technology has advertising potential, and the brands of our brave new world hate nothing more than wasted potential."

"One of the key News Literacy concepts is knowing which "News Neighborhood" you are in. But discerning the difference between news and other forms of information - such as advertising - is becoming harder and harder in the Digital Age. Welcome to the brave new media world of "native advertising" and "sponsored content," and the increasingly blurry line of where "editorial" content ends and advertising begins. Here's one recent example."

"The New York Times unveiled a major redesign of its digital offerings Wednesday. But the redesign has also embraced a controversial shift in journalism: Some posts on the site that look like articles are reported and written by people working for the paper's advertisers. The practice is sometimes called "native advertising" or "branded content," with the idea that there is actual content - maybe in the form of an article, perhaps a video - created by or for an advertiser."

"As newspapers and magazines struggle to survive, you'll probably be hearing a lot about "native advertising." It's a purposefully vague way of saying that online ads will look more and more like articles, making it harder for readers to tell the difference. And you'll likely see more and more cases of marketers getting caught trying to trick people. This week, the Federal Trade Commission announced its first-ever enforcement action involving native advertising. The clothing company Lord & Taylor reached a settlement with the agency over deceptive-trade charges concerning a story about the company's duds on the fashion site Nylon. The story was actually a paid ad. Lord & Taylor, owned by Hudson's Bay, also was accused of paying thousands of dollars to dozens of so-called online influencers - a.k.a. Instagram users with big followings - to plug a dress without revealing that they'd been compensated. "Consumers have the right to know when they're looking at paid advertising," said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection."

"n this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes -- images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne's groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence."

Post-production enhancement of beauty advertising has been standard operating procedure from the age of the air brush to the age of Photoshop, but an action seen by some as long overdue from the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus against Procter & Gamble Co.could change that. The NAD today announced that P&G had discontinued superior-performance claims and a post-production-enhanced photograph in print advertising for its CoverGirl NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara after the industry self-regulatory forum launched an inquiry into the claims and photos.

"The fact is, there is a very good chance that, last night, Amazon "announced" a service that will never exist in reality. Why did Amazon do that? The answer is free advertising. Even better: free advertising the night before the biggest e-commerce shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday. How much was that free advertising worth? "60 Minutes" gave more than 15 minutes to its Amazon story. A 30-second spot during the 7 p.m. show usually costs just over $100,000. If you figure Amazon got 30 30-second commercials' worth of time, you can estimate that it got about $3 million worth of "earned" media. "

"Native ads are ads that don't look like ads. They blend in with the main content of the site, like a promoted Tweet from Samsung about its new phone, or an article about a miracle weight loss drug on a news site. >This week, on December 4, the Federal Trade Commission is hosting a kind of town-hall meeting about native advertising -- which is starting to look like the goose that lays golden eggs to online advertisers and websites. Advertisers love them because they work, users interact with them more than they ever did with banner ads; sites love them, because they pay; site owners can charge more for these ads than they ever did for banners."

"Let's put something to rest: Facebook isn't spying through your phone's microphone to serve you ads for sweatshirts and seltzer water. It probably couldn't even if it wanted to. But if the social network isn't listening to you, that doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't watching. Advertisements in the real world are becoming more technologically sophisticated, integrating facial recognition, location data, artificial intelligence, and other powerful tools that are more commonly associated with your mobile phone. Welcome to the new age of digital marketing. During this year's Fashion Week in New York, a digital billboard ad for New Balance used A.I. technology to detect and highlight pedestrians wearing "exceptional" outfits. A billboard advertisement for the Chevy Malibu recently targeted drivers on Interstate 88 in Chicago by identifying the brand of vehicle they were driving, then serving ads touting its own features in comparison. And Bidooh, a Manchester-based startup that admits it was inspired by Minority Report, is using facial recognition to serve ads through its billboards in the U.K. and other parts of Europe as well as South Korea. According to its website, Bidooh allows advertisers to target people based on criteria like age, gender, ethnicity, hair color, clothing color, height, body shape, perceived emotion, and the presence of glasses, sunglasses, beards, or mustaches. We've been on the path here since at least a decade ago when the New York Times reported that some digital billboards were equipped with small cameras that could analyze a pedestrian's facial features to serve targeted ads based on gender and approximate age. "

This year in viral video, advertisers either broke new ground or just got better at old concepts. But what is clear from this year's top 10 is how passion - for a company, brand or creative concept - continues to drive innovation in viral video advertising.  Here are the top 10 most innovative viral video ads of 2012.. 

Stealth advertising - an ad-industry buzzword for a few years now - is so low-key it doesn't look like advertising at all. Turns out it's also fairly recession-friendly - because it's cheaper than traditional TV advertising. And when it works, it's usually the kind of thing that really works.

"Yes, it's that time of year again--just after the holidays.  Magazines in particular feature cover stories on losing weight.  And weight loss advertising seems to be everywhere, especially in these new year's publications. Presented here are some resources, ads, and activities that will encourage young people to use "critical thinking skills" as it relates to these persuasive forms of advertising.  Since teaching ad technique and awareness is in most state's health teaching standards, these ads are perfect for use in classroom settings."

"Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerard Baker took to a podium last night and warned of the dangers of "native advertising," a big buzzword these days describing the practice of presenting brand-generated content in the style of editorial. "The clear delineation between news and advertising is becoming more and more blurred. We have to resist that," Baker told a crowd at New York University's journalism school"

"20-year broadcasting veteran Tim Burt describes the first essential building block of all effective advertising: Psychology"

Embedded advertising is persuasive material embedded in media content in exchange for a payment.  The ad may take the form of product placement, product integration or branded entertainment.  Though the terms are often used interchangeably, they denote increasing degrees of influence advertisers have over media content.

""Farmed and Dangerous" takes branded content to another level by not including any branding at all in the show. Social Media Week organizers dubbed it Unbranded Entertainment. Chipotle and other advertisers placed commercials in the show, but by not including branding in the show itself, the restaurant has taken a risk that few marketers would entertain. But Chipotle's chief marketing and development officer, Mark Crumpacker, said on a panel at Social Media Week, in which I participated, that he didn't consider it a big risk at all. Citing McDonald's significant marketing budget, which dwarfs his company's, he said Chipotle couldn't afford to rely on traditional advertising. The hope is that PR, buzz and social media will do much of the heavy lifting for the chain's message."

"The Associated Press is planning to introduce sponsored articles into the stream of news stories on its mobile apps and hosted websites. The rollout is expected in early 2014, with potential sponsorship deals centered around major events the AP is planning to cover, such as the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and the Academy Awards. Several potential advertisers have been in talks with the AP, according to Jim Kennedy, senior VP-digital strategy and products at the AP, who declined to identify them. The move to sponsored content is part of a broader effort to open a new line of revenue at the AP, where just 2% of total revenue comes from advertising,

"Advertisers have plenty of ways to manipulate our behavior. See below and in the above slideshow for some of the most effective techniques."