John Oliver knows he's lucky his show airs on HBO and doesn't rely on advertising money — it's the reason he can get away with saying things like "Old Navy clothing makes you look like a tacky murderer." On Sunday's Last Week Tonight, the host talked about media outlets who aren't as fortunate, and have to rely on native advertising, in which the ads are disguised to look like news stories.
Consumers really do have a hard time telling the difference between the two; a recent study showed that less than half of the visitors to a news site could distinguish native ads from the real news. As Oliver points out, that means it's working. "Of course they can't, it's supposed to blend in," he said. "[That's] like a camouflage manufacturer saying 'only an idiot cannot tell the difference between that man and foliage.'"
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