Inside T Brand Studio, The New York Times’ Native Ad Unit

By: Lucia Moses | Digiday

Many publishers may see native advertising as their savior, but The New York Times has approached it with great ambivalence. In introducing the Times’ first native ad product, the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, sent employees a letter that read more like an apology than a new product announcement. The ad product may be “relatively new and can be controversial,” Sulzberger wrote in his letter, but is necessary to help “restore digital advertising revenue to growth.