Is native advertising a threat to PR?

I read some pretty surprising stats recently in a Content Strategist post which outlined the success The New York Times‘ brand studio is having with custom advertising content (referred to as “paid posts”).

The stats:

That’s right: Sponsored content is being getting shared and read as well as some editorial content on nytimes.com, and native ad budgets will basically quadruple in the next few years.

It could be big trouble for PR. Here’s why.

Read through these “paid posts” the brand studio is putting together. They are fantastic (you can read the one titled “Grit and Grace” sponsored by Cole Haan here, and the one titled “Women Inmates: Why the Male Model Doesn’t Work” sponsored by Netflix here). No, they’re not written objectively, but they read very much like a news story you’d see in the paper.