But journalists familiar with the "advertorial" content that has long speckled the pages of their own magazines and newspapers have always held the category in contempt, especially when the content, created usually by a creative team in the media company's sales department with the approval of participating brands, is specifically organized to fool readers into believing it's "real" journlaism.

And as brand-developed content gets more sophisticated and competes with traditional journalism on the open web for eyeballs, readers are becoming less and less interested in the distinction between the two. In other words, what happens when advertorial stops being crappy and starts being good?

via www.capitalnewyork.com

As a citizen in a democracy, you kind of hope consumers are smart enough to know and care about the difference. As a marketer, i hope we get to the point where our content is as trusted as "legacy" media company's conent.