My definition of an ad: Ad is a piece of information trying to convince people to spend money. Ads usually do this by lying (sometimes implicitly, subconsciously - i.e. beautiful women in deodorant ads create an association in the viewers mind between beauty and this particular deodorant).

A piece of information whose primary purpose is to inform, is not an ad (even though it looks like it). This includes, for example, most concert "ads" - a notification about an upcoming Parov Stelar concert informs his fans (= people who already want to go to such a concert) where they can fullfil their desires. It does not create new desire, e.g. by lying that there will be metal music played as well.

>An 'ad' doesn't have to be paid for. And connotations are not definitions.

Language changes.

I don't know anyone who refers to unpaid positive reviews as advertisements--doing so just confuses people.

The article isn't quite promoting anything. It's saying "I like this product", not "buy this product".