One of the great ironies of marketing is that while organizations worry continually about customer loyalty, economists provide scant help in thinking through the levers of a loyalty program. The presumption of economic theory is that people conduct transactions rationally to maximum perceived value (profit) and minimize perceived pain (loss). So most marketers try to build loyalty by giving what they think is economic value (say, coupons or points programs) or using subscription agreements that maximize the pain of leaving.

Like early-1800s railroad engineers trying to figure out the optimal width for track gauges, gadget makers in the 2010s are frantically experimenting with wearable technology. Nike put a “+” sports sensor into sneakers. Google launched Glass heads-up eyeglass displays. Disney research labs has announced Touché, a technology that can turn any surface — clothing, water, your leather couch — into a touchscreen sensor. Reebok has headgear that tells football players when they’ve taken too big a hit. Wearable is the new gadget gold rush.

If you work in digital, every few months you hear of another study pointing out most digital ads are never seen. Commentators with antipathy toward banners respond with blog posts such as “Astounding News from Moronsville,” in which the charming Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman wrote, “You simply cannot make this s**t up.” Alas, you’d think Zuckerberg would walk away and start an auto body shop.

Nope. Global digital ad spend is predicted by eMarketer to rise to $132 billion in 2014. Why? Because it is working better than comparable advertising channels.

On the burning fields of digital media, where everyone knows click-through rates have fallen to horrific lows in the 0.07 percent range, a strange bright flower is growing. Facebook’s new in-stream ad units are generating unheard-of click-through rates of 1 percent or higher. Is Facebook giving away the store?

Native advertising is a more insidious encroachment into consumer media content than any prior form of advertising. Billions of banner ad impressions may annoy readers, but they don’t misdirect users by disguising the source of the message — and this is exactly what native does. If publishers and marketers aren’t careful, they are going to poison the well of digital ad communications by breaking consumer trust.

First, understand why publishers are so tempted to make native their future…