Your link certainly doesn't support you. There are no hard and fast rules. The link is categorized as "guidance", refers to itself several times as "guidance", and contains language like the following:
> Should I include an additional disclosure when I post on Facebook about how useful one of our products is? It’s a good idea.
> Determining whether followers are aware of a relationship could be tricky in many cases, so we recommend disclosure.
> Again, determining that could be tricky, so we recommend disclosure.
> The Guides are intended to give insight into what the FTC thinks about various marketing activities involving endorsements and how Section 5 might apply to those activities. The Guides themselves don’t have the force of law.
If someone files a complaint about you with the FTC, they may come after you after the fact, on a case-by-case, individualized basis; that's as much as they're saying until such time as someone files a complaint.
Unfortunately influencer marketing and ROI are rarely terms used together at present. That being said, it's a format that's a perfect fit for brand awareness as much as it is direct action, so there is value in looking at vanity metrics for reach - shame that path leads to people (potentially) gaming the system.
I was at a talk given by the founder of PlentyOfFish and I asked him what sort or return he saw on the PoF appearances in popular music videos (Lady Gaga "Telephone" is the only one I remember right now). He said that it was just for "brand awareness". I got the impression he was keeping the real answer close to his chest though.
That is because it would be hard to gauge. But think about it, if you are looking to join a dating site then PoF may be a site that comes to mind if you recently saw it in a video.
Oh yeah, absolutely hard to gauge and what you say might be the intended outcome (50% of marketing budget is wasted, but which half yadda yadda...).
But the other part of me refuses to believe that such an action was taken with no planned feedback loop. It has to be damn expensive since music videos are one of the few pieces of media that people choose to watch more than twice and are short enough that your paid spot will get way more % screen time than a movie or TV show.
Branding plays are notoriously hard to measure the impact of because they simply lack the ability to consistently track the touchpoint on the path to conversion. And even then there is the question of how to weight it along with all the others. View-throughs should never be given 100% credit.
If there is anyone who has cracked the nut on how to justify branding efforts to management on an ROI basis I'd love to pick your brain. Arguably one of the hardest problems in marketing today.
If you have a suitable targetable niche, then perception studies really do help - especially if your campaign is designed to change an existing preconception in order to appeal to new people (as opposed to being a direct driver - long pipeline for us). That's what we did and got buy-in from management for the ROI on that basis
If it wasn't effective, it wouldn't be a booming, reliable industry for decades.
The impact of converting one person to using your brand is huge. For things like clothes or shoes, the person becomes walking advertising. For things like food, the person probably has friends -- friends eat together.
It's a short term ad that is in reality a long term investment.
Basically it's like count. Maybe they get a little more sophisticated and filter out spammy likes from that number. Without Instagram supporting links on posts, it's about the best you can do.
Some accounts also change their bio URL to whatever their sponsor wants for 24 hours etc and say "click my bio link for more". Obviously that's more trackable.
Yep, if you can prove those are 100k engaged followers. Similar rates in the email marketing industry for engaged subscribers.
It's not that high - consider the value. Linking your brand to a "trusted" celebrity, their endorsement of the product itself, and targeted exposure to specific markets (and this exposure is targeted by virtue of the celebrity - selling makeup? Use a Kardashian. selling shoes? use an NBA player). Those three things are quite valuable.
This money is not just about the number of views. You are also getting the celebrity to endorse your product. I assume a somebody like Kim Kardashian would charge quite a hefty fee for appearing in TV commercial.
I actually have found that I am moving further and further away from using Instagram due to the ads. My feed is primary filled up with ads, links to other accounts with ads, and very few pictures that are worth actually following. But with the increase in teens using Instagram vs Facebook. I guess I understand the draw for advertisers.
I love the 'I wish we knew what was OK' - someone viewing the content, totally blind, needs to identify it as an advert without prompting. The only way to do that is to state it, up front, in the same format as the content itself. Not hidden away in some description, not in code, plain and simple. Anything less is obviously intending to deceive, and I see no reason to give anyone leeway to try and hide sponsorship.
If you want your sponsorship to come across as real and honest, then get someone to actually like your product, and then it won't matter that they disclose it, as they'll be able to explain why they like it in a convincing way. The only reason people want to hide the 'sponsored' element is that the product is bad, and paying people is the only way to get them to associate with it.
When I watch an Extra Credits video sponsored by a games company, it comes off as honest because it's clear that it's an advert and the content is still quality and obviously unaltered. When Purge (DOTA 2 personality), talks about DotaBuff, it still comes off as honest as he shows how he uses the service and what value it provides him. This can be done right, and is, by reputable people.
The problem with finding someone to like your product is that it's much more efficient to get support from people who don't like your product but are popular, then it is get support from people who like your product, but don't reach a large audience. Business-wise, it's smarter to attempt the former than the latter.
>Audiences "have a very visceral reaction to '#ad' or '#spon' or whatever it is, where they don't want to know people are getting paid for stuff even if they are."
This is the biggest issue marketers have with those who are advertising their products. Even though you can logically assume that a person you follow is sponsoring products, it is more appalling to the consumer when a sponsorship is labeled with #ad, or the likes.
If everyone was truly a self-aware consumer who knew they were being manipulated, this wouldn't be a huge issue. But the fact is that the majority of people will respond much better to subtle advertisements, then ads that label themselves as an advertisement, which most people are conditioned to ignore or dislike.
For example, after the James Bond movie "Skyfall", in which he shaves using a cut-throat razor, razor sales were boosted by 405%. I guarantee you if they had a #ad label during that scene, we would not have seen the same effects.
As for the question "Is it an advertisement?" of course it's an advertisement. But that doesn't mean those involved have to make it blatantly obvious.
> For example, after the James Bond movie "Skyfall", in which he shaves using a cut-throat razor, razor sales were boosted by 405%. I guarantee you if they had a #ad label during that scene, we would not have seen the same effects.
And would that have been a bad thing? Have we really measurably improved the world by having a huge spike in cut-throat razor sales?
> But that doesn't mean those involved have to make it blatantly obvious.
Why not? What's so great about advertising that it's OK to give it free reign to play around with human psychology and influence peoples' behavior without them even being aware of it?
Maybe the upside is that people are getting used to it. They start to expect that any message may be a manipulation, so they pay closer attention to it, put it under a greater scrutiny. It also applies to emotional manipulation; expecting and detecting it makes people more self-aware, and make them appreciate sincere things higher.
That sounds like an argument that an arms race is OK because it leaves us better equipped to defend ourselves. But we wouldn't need all of those extra defenses in the first place if we hadn't entered into an arms race.
As people get more used to it, advertisers just work harder and harder to sneak under the radar. We might get more self aware, but if anything it just leads us to be cynical and untrusting of things that are sincere.
The end result is likely a belief that there are two and only two kinds of media:
Insincere media where I can see that I'm being advertised to.
Insincere media that has outsmarted me and where I can't see that I'm being advertised to.
I see it more like the immune system. Greater (self-)awareness looks like a good thing to me, just due to the way this whole world works. This definitely depends on your philosophy in a wide sense.
On a practical note, reputation works in this circumstances: if I read a piece about, I don't know, fruit jam industry in NYT, it's likely not a blatant paid ad. This is what they monetize when selling subscriptions; should they stop, their reputation, and with it the subscription revenue, would go down.
>Have we really measurably improved the world by having a huge spike in cut-throat razor sales?
That's not the point. The point is that these types of advertisements are effective. In an world where standard ads are being phased out, these types of product placements are becoming more and more necessary. Adding an ad label will eventually make these types of ads obsolete. And it is very naive to think that ads aren't necessary in today's society.
Necessary by who's definition? Sure, I like the way adverts allow me not to pay for content directly (or ask people to pay for things I produce directly). That's great. However, some things I value more than that. Misleading advertising is too far, I won't accept it.
If advertising isn't effective enough to be worth doing, fine. We'll find other ways. Yeah, micropayments have never caught on, but maybe there is an alternative, or maybe they won't be so bad once we accept we need a replacement for adverts.
I'm willing to bet non-misleading ads will still be worth enough the whole ecosystem won't collapse.
In an world where standard ads are being phased out, these types of product placements are becoming more and more necessary.
Are you arguing that without the revenue from product placements, Skyfall's budget just couldn't be made to work, and it wouldn't have been a profitable production? That seems really unlikely.
>In an world where standard ads are being phased out, these types of product placements are becoming more and more necessary. Adding an ad label will eventually make these types of ads obsolete.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by standard ads - the type of advertisements that you seem to be focusing on are relatively new; product placement, of course, has been around for ages, but we haven't really had a communication medium like the Internet prior to the Internet becoming an everyday tool. The fact that people respond better when they don't know it's an ad really shouldn't give advertisers permission to bypass false advertising laws and advertising disclosure. If it comes down to consumer rights versus corporate profit, then sorry, but consumer rights trump corporate profit. If this means that we need to restructure revenue plans for online, then so be it. Native advertising is borderline unethical as it is, especially in news articles.
I cannot accept the idea of "it's the last profitable means so it is a necessity" because it's an arbitrary line to draw if the method is considered unethical. (I use unethical because it's what I consider it, but we can substitute "not wanted" or simply "not allowed" and the point stands) It's inconsistent and non-sensical to label a form of advertising "bad" or "unethical", but to then argue it should be allowed anyways when worse forms of advertising are likely more efficient. No one is arguing that advertising isn't one of the pillars upon which modern business rests; I do think that people will argue whether or not it needs to be anymore, and I know most certainly many will argue that a restructuring is probably needed to remove the need for advertising, or lighten the load.
It's likely true that soon we will hit a point where sites start closing down because the ad revenue doesn't pay the bills anymore, and I think that's fine. Advertising has warped the very structure of websites for years now, and even the infrastructure for the Internet (CDNs for advertisement, ad networks, entire platforms built around advertising first then around a service to get users to advertise to) As much as advertising may enable content, it also compresses and restricts. It obfuscates it behind ad walls, behind slideshows, behind ad-ridden pages with a download or a video where you don't have the slightest clue whether or not the content is even relevant. It's warps search results, and it slowly creeps in and overtakes social media services. (Sponsored tweets, sponsored instagrams, ad bots on social networks, SMS spam, Youtube videos) There is an awful lot of infrastructure that is built out and worked on that has absolutely nothing to do with providing content to viewers, but instead providing advertisements. The balance is simply off right now, and the rebellion against ads is a direct result of that.
> And it is very naive to think that ads aren't necessary in today's society.
I work at Google, so I fully understand how much of today's economy rests on top of advertising. But that doesn't mean society needs to, just that it has chosen to.
I haven't heard compelling arguments that advertising is much of a net boon to humanity. To me, it mostly looks like tools to steal my precious attention in order to make me feel bad about not having a product I didn't know I was missing out on in the first place.
Oy, I just imagined watching Skyfall where every time a product appears on screen, #ad appears in the corner.
I have no problem agreeing that paid Instagram posts should say #ad in the image, but I think doing the same thing in a movie is going too far. I can't really defend that though.
I imagine the change in things would be that brands would stop paying so much for product placement. Which would wind up with a much more natural movie, instead of the forced placement that is usually as glaring and distracting as a #ad on the screen.
I think I know why it's different: James Bond is a fictional character and if he likes Smirnoff vodka that doesn't mean Daniel Craig likes that brand.
Daniel Craig is being paid to portray James Bond, but that doesn't need to be pointed out, right?
I suspect if movies had to put #ad on screen whenever a product is placed, it would be like the California cancer warnings. They would soon become meaningless and invisible.
> I think I know why it's different: James Bond is a fictional character and if he likes Smirnoff vodka that doesn't mean Daniel Craig likes that brand.
Can you elaborate on why this makes a difference? On the theory that people buy "sponsored" products because they wish to feel or display an affinity with the sponsor, James Bond, the fictional chracter, is a much more effective sponsor than is Daniel Craig, the actor.
I wish that I could be James Bond
with dry martinis, cars, and blondes,
a PPK, and sharp things to say
when I'm about to get it on
Daniel Craig isn't the person at stake here. Neither is James Bond. The point is that the product is on screen because someone made a monetary deal for it to happen. Call it "placement", but companies wouldnt be forking over money to place their products if it wasn't valuable. Thats what an advertisement is, paying for exposure. The #ad on screen would be because the producers received money for the ad, not the actor speaking the lines that someone else wrote for him.
If James Bond went on a 5 minute spiel about how Smirnoff is the only good Vodka, instead of subliminal product placement, would that be considered an ad? How much of the movie has to be about Smirnoff before it's legally just a 90 minute Smirnoff commercial.
Medicine commercials on TV already have to announce that someone is a paid actor, it's not completely unheard of.
People would hate having something akin to #ad in the movie itself. I don't really mind so much paid product placement (I more mind places not showing brands because of copyright, as it is unnatural).
But there are other ways to reign this in - through regulation. Italy, for example, requires placement to be natural in the narrative of the movie, and there are other regulations in places. I think one of the more helpful things would be to list the companies paying for placement OR a list of the products placed in a prominent place at the beginning of the end credits or as a screen in the beginning credits - say after the studio logo.
That's interesting. Do you know how many movie have been blocked from being shown in Italy because of unnatural product placement?
For example, there was a different Bond movie where everybody was using Sony phones. That was pretty unnatural because Sony wasn't a terribly popular phone brand at the time.
I wish I had that information! Alas, I do not. I'm going to guess that a lot of the offending scenes can be cut out of the movie with no actual effect on storyline. I did get the impression that it is more that the filming had to be natural in the situation, and not necessarily that the brands being used were common. If the scene was such that Any phone being used would have seemed natural in the scene, then it'd be allowed. Random shots of vehicles, obvious scenes shot to include a computer logo, focusing out on a character only to have the soda on the table come into focus might not be allowed.
> The problem with finding someone to like your product is that it's much more efficient to get support from people who don't like your product but are popular, then it is get support from people who like your product, but don't reach a large audience. Business-wise, it's smarter to attempt the former than the latter.
At least in some industries. I haven't seen that attitude in tech or software at all. Besides Kim promoting her own app of course.
It happens all the time with consumer devices (smart phones, laptops) and larger game launches at least.
On the business/productivity side, those aren't mass market products so why waste money marketing to the masses who aren't going to buy anyway? Though there is all sorts of other nonsense that goes on here too. Just look at all of the not-too-secret courting of reviewers and YouTubers that nVidia and AMD did around their recent GPU launches, for example. (none of this is surprising: it's called marketing. But it is important IMO that it be disclosed regardless of what's being pitched or who it's being pitched too)
Where "respond better" means to the aims of the advertiser. The reason they dont "Respond better" to #ad is because the customer is responding in their own best interest, to discount the claims because they know they're biased by the remuneration .
Its not obvious its an advertisement because if it were the responses would be the same.
Instead of "I wish we knew what was OK," what they really mean is "I wish tricking people was OK." Because it's already clear what's OK: make it obvious that the thing is an advertisement. They just don't want to.
I see why they don't want to, although I don't agree. But whining about how it's unclear isn't winning them any points here. It's clear, they just don't like it.
> The problem with finding someone to like your product is that it's much more efficient to get support from people who don't like your product but are popular, then it is get support from people who like your product, but don't reach a large audience. Business-wise, it's smarter to attempt the former than the latter.
But not if the user knows they are being mislead.
By that logic, we should allow loan sharks to not show their rates - after all, it's much easier to get a couple of customers paying 9000% than many customers paying 10%. If you show people 9000%, they stop borrowing!
> The only reason people want to hide the 'sponsored' element is that the product is bad, and paying people is the only way to get them to associate with it.
Thanks for the heads up, I just read the comment guidelines and I don't see which one you think the above comment violated
I would say that to a person in person and I think it highlights that there is another perspective for the person to consider, mentioning those things because I think they would be the closest arguments the tribunal would consider given those guidelines
Also thought given the plethory of tech ad startups these days, I figured others would agree with me, but since you called it out, I'll take the hint
Civil commentary is about more than just language choice. As a rule of thumb object to content, not meta information. You can replacing dumb with naive, but the underlining commentary is about the messenger not the message.
Now, with some actual commentary it's less obvious. But, when the entire comment is simply a snippy one liner it's just filler. As it stands I can guess what the objection was, but not in any meaningful fashion.
PS: If I would change the rules I would make it clear that it makes boring reading is one of the major things to avoid.
I think a good example of how to do this sort of thing right is the "Hey Ash Watcha Playin'" videos on YouTube. They make content about games. Sometimes they're paid to make content about a particular game, and when they do they write "(SPONSORED)" right in the title of the video. Still good content, I could avoid clicking on it easily, but I watch it anyway because I like the channel and know it'll probably be funny anyway.
A bad example would probably be that one Kardashian guy who accidentally posted the instructions about how to pose and what to say instead of following the instructions.
I wholeheartedly disagree. What about the case where the person involved actually loves the product and wanted to talk about it anyway? This is frequently the case with gamers, models that prefer certain makeup, etc. What's worth doing is worth getting paid for, but that doesn't necessarily mean they "intend to deceive" - in fact it's the exact opposite. It's an honest endorsement.
IMO, it should only be required to be labeled as an ad if the post wouldn't have been made unless the brand paid for it.
Yes, but he's still saying that should be labeled as an ad just because the person got paid for it. That's what I disagree with. The only test should be "would the user be seeing this if the poster wasn't paid?"
But you can still label it with that specificity--I've seen Internet celebrities close videos with "Yes, I really do love this product, but I am also getting paid for this." Transparency about when money is being transferred is important.
I disagree that it is important to know that they were paid if they genuinely like the product. Any hint of it being advertising immediately discredits the content, and there is no need for that to happen in the case of a genuine endorsement.
Sure, in the perfect world, we'd fire up the intent detector and know. In the real world, everyone would claim 'Oh, but I do love the product.' and the end result is it's unregulated and people get tricked.
But why do you think that any hint of being advertising discredits the content? Surely if there's reason to think that, you'd want to know if content is discreditable? Or do you just think that the masses will mistakenly discredit content if they know money was exchanged?
It's still not the same, though: I genuinely like a ton of products, but most of them I wouldn't actively promote if I weren't being paid to do so. There's still a difference between someone off-the-cuff mentioning/plugging a particular product they like, vs. someone being paid to do so, even for a product the use and like regardless of the payment.
I give examples of exactly that - and those people state clearly it's an advert. I then judge how much I trust those people with that knowledge. The difference is that I get to choose, with all the knowledge at my disposal.
Yes. If you are paid to advertise something, it is an ad.
The law is having trouble catching up on this front, especially in a world where any YouTuber with an audience could potentially run undisclosed ads. Regulating people posting videos out of their basement sounds like a nightmare.
That said, I do my best to never support content creators that don't disclose ads or hide their disclosures in hashtags or below the "Show more" button in a YouTube description. That's not a real disclosure. You know it and I know it. That's why you put it there in the first place- because no one will see it.
Never mind YouTubers. I regularly see undisclosed advertisements on national broadcast television shows, like Good Morning America, to name a particularly egregious obfuscating advertiser. It is completely obvious to me when something is a (likely paid, somehow) promotional advertising rather than informational reporting.
It is obvious to me when ABC constantly promotes content owned by its parent company, Disney. But I often have to say to my spouse, "You know that's an ad, right?" and hear the response, "Whaaaaaat? No way, really? Now that you mention it..."
There is still a cohort of journalists hanging on to their last shred of professional ethics that will always disclose both paid consideration and corporate relationships between the subject of a story and their employer, but they seem to be slowly dying out.
YouTubers are the least of our problems. Native advertising is already firmly entrenched in mass media.
Isn't any product featured on that show basically a paid advertisement? My wife would occasionally watch it, and I recall seeing them show off clothing all the time (complete with models parading in front of the camera.)
If the segment includes a fashion editor/advisor from a magazine, the clothing and accessories featured are advertisers for the magazine, not paying GMA directly (to my knowledge).
I did a little freelance on the magazine side, putting packages together to show the fashion labels what coverage the magazine was able to get. I have know idea if this cost extra or it was more of a incentive to purchase bigger ad buys in the magazine. This was nearly a decade ago, but at the time I don't believe the morning shows were paying labels or the fashion consultants, it was more of a quid pro quo.
Obfuscation of the mutual back-scratching arrangements does not obviate the fact that the segment airing on national broadcast television is not being disclosed as an advertisement, nor that many viewers will not necessarily recognize it as such without outside assistance.
It is really very well done if you consider it objectively. The show that is itself loaded with inlined advertisement is also able to sell traditional advertisement time in its segment breaks.
But in my own opinion, shows that do that sort of thing need to be nuked from orbit, and the glass broken up with jackhammers so that salt may be plowed into the dust underneath. I simply cannot abide the ubiquity and intrusiveness of advertisements in the current culture.
News companies have tools to help schedule advertisements in ways that don't make the advertiser look bad (airing a segment on oil spills then don't advertise BP).
While advertisers don't explicitly ask media companies not to run negative segments, they can book a large commercial inventory and incentivize as much.
Oh I agree and didn't mean to infer otherwise, just doing my bit to illuminate the process (a process that might have changed since I was last involved a decade ago).
Unsolvable automatically, using technologies currently available. I am not proposing despair, just saying I don't think the existence of automatic tools for identifying some kinds of copyright infringement gives much reason to think we could build automatic tools for identifying product placement.
There's plenty of gray area where you're gifting something non-cash, like an experience that you are interested in anyway. Look at the Kylie Airbnb deal for instance.
This one is pretty clear: if they wrote the testimonial before receiving the discount, and did not have the expectation that they were going to receive a discount, then that's OK, because their testimonials are not biased by the discount.
What constitutes a gift is definitely a gray area, and very culturally specific. It's nice to want things to be black and white, but reality doesn't always line up.
This is why most government agencies have strict policies to never accept any sort of favor from organizations or people they do business with. Even if it's a "I'll pay for lunch next time, you can pay next time."
Basically, if there is even a remote chance that the action could be misconstrued as a gift when viewed from the outside, it's politely rejected.
I was part of a government group that regularly accepted airfare, lodging, and meals. There was demand for us, but we didn't have the funding to travel on our own.
One time this created a funny situation where a pro sports team flew us out on their private jet. While we were in the air, they were about to hand out hats with their logo on them, and the head of our group had to stop that until he could consult the lawyers about that gift. It felt like an overreaction in the particular situation, to say the least.
Uh, every single time a "journalist" is easy on a subject so that they can get future access, that's a gift from the subject in exchange for them going easy.
Journalism as actually practiced is almost a definition of what a "gift" culture is, especially political journalism.
> Yes. If you are paid to advertise something, it is an ad.
Good luck with that definition. Is a person wearing sponsored designer clothing on the red carpet obligated to declare that the didn't pay for it? Or does that obligation only arrive when someone takes a photo of them?
I do think that sponsored posts are a big problem, but it's exactly as much of a problem as the product placement that buffets us elsewhere in life, and equally as impossible to prevent.
> Is a person wearing sponsored designer clothing on the red carpet obligated to declare that the didn't pay for it.
Yes? How is this even a question? A company paid them in the form of an outfit for the sole purpose of having it be seen. There is no interpretation of this situation where it's not an ad.
This is already a solved problem, just let the NCAA regulators handle it [1].
> Yes? How is this even a question? A company paid them in the form of an outfit for the sole purpose of having it be seen. There is no interpretation of this situation where it's not an ad.
Well, except real life, where we need to work with facts instead of idealism. Nobody is denying it's an ad, I'm denying that it's possible to eradicate product placement. This is not a new problem for Instagram, it's a fact of life that we have always dealt with.
On the face of it, I agree with you and support the spirit of e.g. FTC advertising standards.
However, this is a much deeper problem with our culture and relying on regulatory bodies isn't going to cut it as "the media" is so fragmented now and there are so many ways to circumvent (like hiding your disclosures in hashtags).
Rather than trying to curb this with legislation, I think we should try to counter it with education. An understanding of how and why a piece of information reached you should be part of the toolbox of every literate person.
A checkbox when posting to denote that content was influenced by provision of gift/service. Then the platform (Instagram, for example) has a subtle but recognisable mark on that photo or caption. Threat of fines for non-compliance, but only really police the main users so they lead by example. Make it easier and less damaging to comply for the major users than to avoid it. Make it like the cachet associated with being "sponsored" in extreme sports so smalltime users aspire to follow suit.
Is there currently a way to tell how much isn't too much to pay influencers or to know what others have paid? I have seen Instagram-famous with 250k followers asking for $5k for one single post in their demographic- but after calculating the ROI with many guess work and assumptions, it seems to be a lot worse than FB ad. The influencers often pitches themselves to be more "organic", or the ad is giving more "brand" effect that's hard to measure with traditional metrics. Sometimes this just feel like a new way of gambling and the seller has way more information and leverage than the buyer.
As a marketing guy, I understand that an endorsement won't come across as genuine if it's clearly marked as an ad... but at at the same time it isn't genuine so there is no problem. Consumers reacting poorly to the realization that their favorite personalities were paid to like something is perfectly normal. I think the challenge to meet is how to make an authentic connection within a paid endorsement framework rather than trying to disguise a paid endorsement as just 'loving a brand.'
Fundamentally if money changes hands for an endorsement to take place it is no longer an authentic endorsement.
The most authentic endorsement you can have is word of mouth. This is simply being the best product on the market. But this would put advertisers out of business, and force companies to make good long lasting durable products. Neither of these things are in advertisers, or product manufacturers best interest.
Ultimately planned obsolescence, and corporation funded advertisement driven product cargo cults are far more profitable. (I.E.: iPhone, 50's-70's auto manufacturing)
Your statement boils down to How can we make corporations care about something other then profit? The answer is you can't. You misunderstand the purpose of corporations.
> Fundamentally if money changes hands for an endorsement to take place it is no longer an authentic endorsement.
I wholeheartedly agree that this is common, and need to be disclosed.
However, I work for a brand that is genuinely loved (not hard: we deliver food) has cult following (think major rappers mentioning us casually as a euphemism for chilling) and if we pay anyone to endorse us (I do not know that we have in the past) we’ll probably start by actual fans. Their endorsement will be authentic in that sense.
We have sent free food to celebrities during special occasions (not money, but the equivalent is easy to make); I don’t think we’ve ever agreed with them before hand — we just knew they were going to be hungry. They generally learned we took the initiative via a public announcement (@-mention on twitter).
> How can we make corporations care about something other then profit?
I can honestly confess this corporation cares about food a lot. More than money… Well, the two are fungible.
Man the cognitive dissonance in your post is hilarious.
>We have sent free food to celebrities during special occasions (not money, but the equivalent is easy to make);
>this corporation cares about food a lot. More than money… Well, the two are fungible.
What are you even trying to argue about? You admit your core argument is flawed every time you state it. It is like you don't even believe what you are posting about.
In the two examples you quote, I am saying that money is easily changeable into food. The reverse is actually not true (which is why there is a lot of food waste and charities handle redistributing some of it).
I’m missing the cognitive dissonance. We’ve surprised hungry people with food at an opportune moment, not money.
If you want a clearer discussion on the distinction, Dan Ariely has a great explanation on paying his mother-in-law for diner. I’d be happy to quote Amartya Sen or Kahneman on the same topic if you want a clearer explanation.
I don't think that's true by necessity, although it can be. Endorsements are worth money, so it's reasonable to pay for them. Let's say I love Taco Bell (I do) and also I'm a celebrity (I'm not). Even though I genuinely love Taco Bell I wouldn't do a radio commercial for them for free -- but if they offered me money to do it I would, because I love the product. They pay me for my reach and I do it in good conscience because I actually like the product.
Problem becomes when your reach is so large essentially anyone is willing to pay you five figures to hawk anything. I can see how that would be enticing.
Ultimately we (the public) have to realize that celebs are just people, who may not have special knowledge about the kinds of products they're selling. Their value is in their reach, not their expertise, so take celebrity endorsements with a grain of salt.
Ultimately we (the public) have to realize that celebs are just people, who may not have special knowledge about the kinds of products they're selling.
Surely then, putting a clear sign saying 'Advert' or 'Sponsored' would help everyone to realize this.
That muddies the water by treating all adverts the same, when sometimes (like the t-bell example above) the celeb truly likes/uses the product.
I guess the best you can do as a celeb is build your brand around how you do adverts. Some radio hosts here in CA (Armstrong & Getty) say they only do adverts for products they personally use & recommend. I admit to buying a product they advertise (a belt) some years ago and it's great - I'm glad they advertised it because I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise (still wearing it!).
>That muddies the water by treating all adverts the same, when sometimes (like the t-bell example above) the celeb truly likes/uses the product.
But you admit this is irrelevant because you don't know if that person has any in-depth knowledge. Nor do you know/trust that person.
In your scenario that person is just a voice on a radio saying Trust me I love Tacobell and eat it all the time. Trust is an interpersonal social currency, gained via social interaction. If there is no prior social interaction between the advocator, and the person being advertised too... How can there be trust?
IMO it doesn't matter how much the person loves the product it's still an advert if they're compensated in some way for promoting it. "I loved it so much I bought the company", well then it's not an ad?? Of course it's advertising. If there's a causal link between the placement and [the paying of] a consideration then it's an ad.
>they only do adverts for products they personally use & recommend //
Is that a legally binding statement in the relevant jurisdiction, sounds just like the sort of thing a person who'd never used something but was only concerned about the money would say.
Obviously corporations exist to make money. I'm not saying that. I do say that it is within an organization's interest to communicate authenticity. Not the illusion of authenticity (though that does benefit the bottom line too,) but legitimate authenticity.
When I think of an ad that has someone I trust talking about a product they love or trust even though they were paid to like it, I think of podcast ads. Some of the podcasts I listen to; Hello Internet, Cortex, or ATP; been a fine experiences even with the ads because it didn't feel like a dishonest recommendation. I know they're getting paid to say what they do, and that's perfectly fine with me. Advertisers should move to make experiences like that, with transperancy, so that everyone knows what's going on, knows they're basically ads, but still trust the endorsements.
This is an industry I'm familiar with and I'd love to hear some debate on this. In my opinion the industry resembles celebrity endorsements and product placement much more than digital advertising.
Do celebrities need to disclose they are being compensated to mention a brand on the red carpet?
Do movies need to start including #ad in scenes that have paid product placements?
The idea of endorsements and product placement go back for decades, and this is no different. What distinguishes this from the examples above, and if "ad" needs to be disclosed with influencer posts, why does it not need to be disclosed with celebrity endorsements and product placement?
While there are certainly exceptions (cough Kardashians) a heavy majority of influencers won't post about brands or products they don't genuinely like and believe their audience would be interested in. They won't muddy their name with a bad brand. So why do they need to be paid to post? Because they aren't going to spend the time to create and share content for free.
I think one difference is that with celebrity endorsements, you actually see the brand in action. With the Kim Kardashian example in the article, we don't really know if she uses that hair product.
And the implication is "I have great hair because of this product" when the reality is she has a legion of professionals and an unlimited hair budget. Obvious to some, deceptive to others.
Hair not but the tea in article is a fittea that my friend Michel G. started from a scratch a few years ago.
She got paid $250,000 for December post about it. From the first hand I can tell you that no - she has never tried the tea, and neither she ever needed a "detox" tea to begin with.
Perhaps your "unit" here should not be the post but the entire Instagram feed - the same way you're talking of a film rather than a particular scene or shot.
The way I see it, she has simply placed a product in her feed, the same way a film places a product in its timeline. Whether you like the practice or not, I'd treat both the same way.
Also, disclosed or not, part of the audience will inevitably figure out the ulterior motive ("Oh, look at that product placement!"), and then some will get turned off ("How blatant!"). It's up to the content creators to do this slily or tactfully enough so it doesn't backfire. Perhaps that's more important than disclosing per se.
This gets into an insane grey area, and is completely subjective, but I think for movies, often the entire point of a film is suspension of disbelief, to transport the viewer somewhere else for two hours. A "#ad" in the corner every time a product placement shows up would be jarring and ruin the effect, ruin the _art_, if you want to put it that way.
Tagging a single Instagram post with "#ad", on the contrary, doesn't detract from other non-ad photos in the feed. Obviously if the feed is mostly advertisements, some people might find its value overall go down.
I would argue for reducing the unit rather than increasing it.
> Perhaps that's more important than disclosing per se.
I respectfully disagree, I don't support any ulterior or non-marked advertising. I'd rather see legislation that bans paid product placement in movies than reduced disclosure rules. But that's just me being an angry old man.
> While there are certainly exceptions (cough Kardashians) a heavy majority of influencers won't post about brands or products they don't genuinely like and believe their audience would be interested in. They won't muddy their name with a bad brand.
Other influencers also do not have the reach that they do, and consequently the payout is so much different.
And do you really believe their audience isn't interested in hair care products? I mean they make their own line of makeup...
I'm not defending the approach, but I feel like there's more strategy in the selection than that.
I don't think there is any question about whether or not it is an ad. They identified it as an ad. The conversation seems to be seeking to create a debate around disclosure, and whether it lies solely with the product, or with the the celebrity as well.
I don't think we need to require celebrities to disclose all of their endorsements, financial relationships or tax returns. Hyperbole intended. From a simply practical perspective, if they all did it, it would become meaningless and no different than not doing it. I actually think it lends them some authority because they are paid to endorse something. It implies that their opinion is of value when the endorsement is actually paying for access to their audience while implying some expertise.
I think Howard Stern is a great counterpoint to the Kardashian example. He has as much, or more power in terms of influencing a large audience. Where the Kardashians have proven themselves as simple profiteers (the Kardashian Card being the best example: http://kardashiankard.com/card-fees/), at best, while Stern has shown profound respect for his audience. He sells advertising through his show, but they are clearly identified, and he claims that his personal endorsement are genuine. I believe him.
In the end, I think the Kardashians and others that fall in to the same category are exploiting a mostly young, less discriminating audience. Given enough time they will discredit themselves.
I think trying to police celebrity disclosures is silly, and impractical, while having the potential, as mentioned above, to make it meaningless anyway.
If one is marketing a product and the ad/product doesnt interest me, then one needs a more compelling ad/product. Ploys to game my psyche are simply (imo immoral) manipulations in order to extract more value without giving any more value. That is, by using these games you're attracting your worst customers-- the ones who may not otherwise want you, who will pay nonetheless and when the psychological manipulation subsides will be most likely to regret and complain about what they received for the money.
This is just my personal line, and others may have different lines. My problem is more the implication that someone is using and likes a product when they actually aren't. Regardless of whether or not they're paid to use it. So I don't have an actual problem with the original airbnb tweet, assuming they actually used the house.
> Do celebrities need to disclose they are being compensated to mention a brand on the red carpet?
They tend to mention brands they are actually wearing at the time. In public. I don't have much of a problem with this.
> Do movies need to start including #ad in scenes that have paid product placements?
I'm assuming "the original airbnb tweet" refers to Kylie Jenner's AirBnB birthday gift post.
I consider AirBnB's product/service to be the marketplace for temporary lodging.
I don't know what actually happened with AirBnB/Jenner, but I predict AirBnB reached out with something like "We'll find somewhere nice for you to stay if you post it". I don't consider that using AirBnB's product. The AirBnB's marketing/promotion/whatever team just short-circuited the usage of the product/service.
Of course, if AirBnB's product/service was reaching out out to me and giving me free lodging in a beautiful place for me to post on social media, then I'd be totally down with the original AirBnB tweet.
In regards to your last point, I believe experiments in human psychology have shown that the lines are quite blurred when it comes to fiction vs reality w/ sensory input.
Unless one holds some principle that is able to supersede any given perceived "facts", fiction easily becomes truth, and even then it's a real struggle.
We have been studied, we have been found flawed, and those flaws are exploited for monetary gain as a matter of course.
>“A few bloggers we work with say, ‘I want you to know, my engagement on posts that are tagged “#ad” or “#spon” get lower engagement than if that wasn’t there.’”
This sums up the issue pretty well. The advertisers are acting like there must be some compromise where readers are both informed and engaged, and the reality is that knowing is what disengages them.
That might be something they can overcome through the quality of the paid content, but they cannot be allowed to overcome it by deceiving people.
If you are paid to "like" something when you could care less and pose for a photo like you "love it", that's not an endorsement, that is a de facto legal bribe.
So now we need ad blockers which could identify brands in tags and then block the entire image. I know it sounds absurd but so is modern advertising. They don’t seem to have any moral barrier. This is a war for protecting our privacy and the web as a whole.
It doesn’t violate my privacy but it endangers the well being of the web. If native advertising becomes the norm journalism as a whole will go down the toilet. First it starts with celebrities endorsing products without clearly stating that they’ve been paid, and then you’ll have the buzzfeed model all around the web. Paid articles that promote products in a way that the untrained user can’t really tell the difference. I don’t like it. Of course I can only speak for myself.
> Paid articles that promote products in a way that the untrained user can’t really tell the difference.
You realize that there is nothing new about this right? It's been happening since the dawn of capitalism. Not saying it is bad or good, just noting that it isn't new.
> Captiv8, a company that connects brands to influencers, says someone with three million to seven million followers can charge, on average, $187,500 for a post on YouTube, $75,000 for a post on Instagram or Snapchat and $30,000 for a post on Twitter.
Grey market indicator on the market value of the platforms themselves
Possibly, but I'd say it probably comes closer to matching the (relative) level of effort required to create an average piece of content for each platform. Video vs short video/image vs text.
Personally I don't care if something is an ad or not. If it's someone that has some notoriety I sort of expect it. I love calling it out with something simple like "#ad" because I don't feel like I'm being deceived regardless of the clear distinction that the post would clearly be an ad without it. Having the simple hashtag just means that I can trust that the brand isn't trying to be deceitful.
I recognize that my first reaction is an elitist "who cares what losers who 'follow' celebrities get sold on".
But even when I get past that, I can't figure out why I'd care. It doesn't sound like the FTC is in the business of determining what's a legitimate from-the-heart endorsement versus what's a paid endorsement anyway.
In the end, all that really seems to matter is truth in advertising. If she's making undocumented medical claims about something, and being paid to do so, doesn't the FTC already have a right to clamp down on it? Follow the dollars.
I imagine making undocumented medical claims for free fall under 'free speech'. So all they have to do is see if she's getting paid or not.
It probably isn't a big issue if you are looking for something to drink. But say you are wanting to buy a larger investment item or one you don't know much about. Kitchen appliances are a good example. Let's say a coffee grinder.
Perhaps you've bought a couple, and they haven't lasted long or been sup-par in quality, or maybe you had one you liked, but they no longer make it. You bought the same brand, but behold, it quit sooner or it doesn't do nearly as well. And you'd really like to have one that is decent, even if you spend a bit more money. If you can't sort out which reviews are paid endorsements and which ones are heartfelt reviews, you are none the wiser. Something that is basically an ad isn't nearly as trustworthy in this case. The ads might not have been false, per se, but they aren't exactly going to give the bad with the good.
It seems that Amazon, for example, has already seen the huge problem that causes, and has been working to reduce that problem. At the other end of the spectrum, you'd be assigning the FTC to be like the small subset of redditors who feel compelled to reply "Hail Corporate!" any time you mention a product you like.
I do understand that it is a broad spectrum to regulate, and a lot of times, it'll go without being caught. But there are ways of undermining these sorts of things. For example, regulate the more visible folks fairly stringently. This is more because a 'known' individual, a public person, has more pull and status and visibility than the unknown person on reddit.
I'd always punish the offending company much more (noticable fines, dependent on company financials) - they can require the person states the paid portion of their endorsement.
In cases like Amazon, it might be hard to catch, but when it is, you can fine the companies involved in the paid support - an ad company, the parent company, etc. (Amazon itself seems to be against this and likely willing to cooperate, so they'd not have much issue).
There seems to be an overwhelming opinion here that all ads must declare themselves as such. Why is that? I hate ads as much as the next guy, but forcing media to label itself one way or another seems morally suspect, and could certainly run afoul of the principles of free speech and artistic freedom.
"Paid $75k to Love a Brand on Instagram – Is It an Ad?"
If you are a public figure paid 1 cent to endorse a product, then it is an ad. If you fail to clearly disclose this ad identity and relationship then it is dishonest, possibly criminal.
Nothing more to discuss. This specific situation is vastly beyond any possible gray area.
Celebrity endorsements have been regulated by the FTC since the early days of television.[1] This isn't a new thing. It goes back much further. Mark Twain did a lot of endorsements.[2] It got completely out of hand in 1950s and 1960s TV, and the FTC put a stop to it.
The same rules apply on Instagram. Nothing new here, just an old bad idea coming around again.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 194 ms ] threadThis is untrue. There are regulations around paid endorsements: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...
> Should I include an additional disclosure when I post on Facebook about how useful one of our products is? It’s a good idea.
> Determining whether followers are aware of a relationship could be tricky in many cases, so we recommend disclosure.
> Again, determining that could be tricky, so we recommend disclosure.
> The Guides are intended to give insight into what the FTC thinks about various marketing activities involving endorsements and how Section 5 might apply to those activities. The Guides themselves don’t have the force of law.
If someone files a complaint about you with the FTC, they may come after you after the fact, on a case-by-case, individualized basis; that's as much as they're saying until such time as someone files a complaint.
But the other part of me refuses to believe that such an action was taken with no planned feedback loop. It has to be damn expensive since music videos are one of the few pieces of media that people choose to watch more than twice and are short enough that your paid spot will get way more % screen time than a movie or TV show.
If there is anyone who has cracked the nut on how to justify branding efforts to management on an ROI basis I'd love to pick your brain. Arguably one of the hardest problems in marketing today.
The impact of converting one person to using your brand is huge. For things like clothes or shoes, the person becomes walking advertising. For things like food, the person probably has friends -- friends eat together.
It's a short term ad that is in reality a long term investment.
Some accounts also change their bio URL to whatever their sponsor wants for 24 hours etc and say "click my bio link for more". Obviously that's more trackable.
It's not that high - consider the value. Linking your brand to a "trusted" celebrity, their endorsement of the product itself, and targeted exposure to specific markets (and this exposure is targeted by virtue of the celebrity - selling makeup? Use a Kardashian. selling shoes? use an NBA player). Those three things are quite valuable.
kimkardashian 81.2m followers kyliejenner 73.4m followers
If you want your sponsorship to come across as real and honest, then get someone to actually like your product, and then it won't matter that they disclose it, as they'll be able to explain why they like it in a convincing way. The only reason people want to hide the 'sponsored' element is that the product is bad, and paying people is the only way to get them to associate with it.
When I watch an Extra Credits video sponsored by a games company, it comes off as honest because it's clear that it's an advert and the content is still quality and obviously unaltered. When Purge (DOTA 2 personality), talks about DotaBuff, it still comes off as honest as he shows how he uses the service and what value it provides him. This can be done right, and is, by reputable people.
You're referring to earned media.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_media
>Audiences "have a very visceral reaction to '#ad' or '#spon' or whatever it is, where they don't want to know people are getting paid for stuff even if they are."
This is the biggest issue marketers have with those who are advertising their products. Even though you can logically assume that a person you follow is sponsoring products, it is more appalling to the consumer when a sponsorship is labeled with #ad, or the likes.
If everyone was truly a self-aware consumer who knew they were being manipulated, this wouldn't be a huge issue. But the fact is that the majority of people will respond much better to subtle advertisements, then ads that label themselves as an advertisement, which most people are conditioned to ignore or dislike.
For example, after the James Bond movie "Skyfall", in which he shaves using a cut-throat razor, razor sales were boosted by 405%. I guarantee you if they had a #ad label during that scene, we would not have seen the same effects.
As for the question "Is it an advertisement?" of course it's an advertisement. But that doesn't mean those involved have to make it blatantly obvious.
And would that have been a bad thing? Have we really measurably improved the world by having a huge spike in cut-throat razor sales?
> But that doesn't mean those involved have to make it blatantly obvious.
Why not? What's so great about advertising that it's OK to give it free reign to play around with human psychology and influence peoples' behavior without them even being aware of it?
As people get more used to it, advertisers just work harder and harder to sneak under the radar. We might get more self aware, but if anything it just leads us to be cynical and untrusting of things that are sincere.
The end result is likely a belief that there are two and only two kinds of media:
Insincere media where I can see that I'm being advertised to.
Insincere media that has outsmarted me and where I can't see that I'm being advertised to.
On a practical note, reputation works in this circumstances: if I read a piece about, I don't know, fruit jam industry in NYT, it's likely not a blatant paid ad. This is what they monetize when selling subscriptions; should they stop, their reputation, and with it the subscription revenue, would go down.
It generates profit! Why are we still discussing this? /s
That's not the point. The point is that these types of advertisements are effective. In an world where standard ads are being phased out, these types of product placements are becoming more and more necessary. Adding an ad label will eventually make these types of ads obsolete. And it is very naive to think that ads aren't necessary in today's society.
If advertising isn't effective enough to be worth doing, fine. We'll find other ways. Yeah, micropayments have never caught on, but maybe there is an alternative, or maybe they won't be so bad once we accept we need a replacement for adverts.
I'm willing to bet non-misleading ads will still be worth enough the whole ecosystem won't collapse.
Are you arguing that without the revenue from product placements, Skyfall's budget just couldn't be made to work, and it wouldn't have been a profitable production? That seems really unlikely.
Ads may be necessary to today's society, but I'm not so sure everything we have in today's society is all that necessary. Call me naive.
>In an world where standard ads are being phased out, these types of product placements are becoming more and more necessary. Adding an ad label will eventually make these types of ads obsolete.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by standard ads - the type of advertisements that you seem to be focusing on are relatively new; product placement, of course, has been around for ages, but we haven't really had a communication medium like the Internet prior to the Internet becoming an everyday tool. The fact that people respond better when they don't know it's an ad really shouldn't give advertisers permission to bypass false advertising laws and advertising disclosure. If it comes down to consumer rights versus corporate profit, then sorry, but consumer rights trump corporate profit. If this means that we need to restructure revenue plans for online, then so be it. Native advertising is borderline unethical as it is, especially in news articles.
I cannot accept the idea of "it's the last profitable means so it is a necessity" because it's an arbitrary line to draw if the method is considered unethical. (I use unethical because it's what I consider it, but we can substitute "not wanted" or simply "not allowed" and the point stands) It's inconsistent and non-sensical to label a form of advertising "bad" or "unethical", but to then argue it should be allowed anyways when worse forms of advertising are likely more efficient. No one is arguing that advertising isn't one of the pillars upon which modern business rests; I do think that people will argue whether or not it needs to be anymore, and I know most certainly many will argue that a restructuring is probably needed to remove the need for advertising, or lighten the load.
It's likely true that soon we will hit a point where sites start closing down because the ad revenue doesn't pay the bills anymore, and I think that's fine. Advertising has warped the very structure of websites for years now, and even the infrastructure for the Internet (CDNs for advertisement, ad networks, entire platforms built around advertising first then around a service to get users to advertise to) As much as advertising may enable content, it also compresses and restricts. It obfuscates it behind ad walls, behind slideshows, behind ad-ridden pages with a download or a video where you don't have the slightest clue whether or not the content is even relevant. It's warps search results, and it slowly creeps in and overtakes social media services. (Sponsored tweets, sponsored instagrams, ad bots on social networks, SMS spam, Youtube videos) There is an awful lot of infrastructure that is built out and worked on that has absolutely nothing to do with providing content to viewers, but instead providing advertisements. The balance is simply off right now, and the rebellion against ads is a direct result of that.
I work at Google, so I fully understand how much of today's economy rests on top of advertising. But that doesn't mean society needs to, just that it has chosen to.
I haven't heard compelling arguments that advertising is much of a net boon to humanity. To me, it mostly looks like tools to steal my precious attention in order to make me feel bad about not having a product I didn't know I was missing out on in the first place.
I have no problem agreeing that paid Instagram posts should say #ad in the image, but I think doing the same thing in a movie is going too far. I can't really defend that though.
Daniel Craig is being paid to portray James Bond, but that doesn't need to be pointed out, right?
I suspect if movies had to put #ad on screen whenever a product is placed, it would be like the California cancer warnings. They would soon become meaningless and invisible.
Can you elaborate on why this makes a difference? On the theory that people buy "sponsored" products because they wish to feel or display an affinity with the sponsor, James Bond, the fictional chracter, is a much more effective sponsor than is Daniel Craig, the actor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU9cK9d0aWw#t=56Maybe it comes down to feeling that the cost of #ad in the corner of the movie is much higher than the value of doing so.
How about when ESPN televises a NASCAR race. Ever car is covered in ads, do they have to have #ad on screen for the entire broadcast?
Although, if a disclosure rule that would lead to broadcasters removing their bug watermark in the corner came along, I would be all for that.
If James Bond went on a 5 minute spiel about how Smirnoff is the only good Vodka, instead of subliminal product placement, would that be considered an ad? How much of the movie has to be about Smirnoff before it's legally just a 90 minute Smirnoff commercial.
Medicine commercials on TV already have to announce that someone is a paid actor, it's not completely unheard of.
But there are other ways to reign this in - through regulation. Italy, for example, requires placement to be natural in the narrative of the movie, and there are other regulations in places. I think one of the more helpful things would be to list the companies paying for placement OR a list of the products placed in a prominent place at the beginning of the end credits or as a screen in the beginning credits - say after the studio logo.
Information for the Italy regulation came from: https://www.pwc.com/it/it/publications/assets/docs/product-p...
For example, there was a different Bond movie where everybody was using Sony phones. That was pretty unnatural because Sony wasn't a terribly popular phone brand at the time.
At least in some industries. I haven't seen that attitude in tech or software at all. Besides Kim promoting her own app of course.
On the business/productivity side, those aren't mass market products so why waste money marketing to the masses who aren't going to buy anyway? Though there is all sorts of other nonsense that goes on here too. Just look at all of the not-too-secret courting of reviewers and YouTubers that nVidia and AMD did around their recent GPU launches, for example. (none of this is surprising: it's called marketing. But it is important IMO that it be disclosed regardless of what's being pitched or who it's being pitched too)
Its not obvious its an advertisement because if it were the responses would be the same.
I see why they don't want to, although I don't agree. But whining about how it's unclear isn't winning them any points here. It's clear, they just don't like it.
But not if the user knows they are being mislead.
By that logic, we should allow loan sharks to not show their rates - after all, it's much easier to get a couple of customers paying 9000% than many customers paying 10%. If you show people 9000%, they stop borrowing!
Well thats a naive opinion
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I would say that to a person in person and I think it highlights that there is another perspective for the person to consider, mentioning those things because I think they would be the closest arguments the tribunal would consider given those guidelines
Also thought given the plethory of tech ad startups these days, I figured others would agree with me, but since you called it out, I'll take the hint
Civil commentary is about more than just language choice. As a rule of thumb object to content, not meta information. You can replacing dumb with naive, but the underlining commentary is about the messenger not the message.
Now, with some actual commentary it's less obvious. But, when the entire comment is simply a snippy one liner it's just filler. As it stands I can guess what the objection was, but not in any meaningful fashion.
PS: If I would change the rules I would make it clear that it makes boring reading is one of the major things to avoid.
A bad example would probably be that one Kardashian guy who accidentally posted the instructions about how to pose and what to say instead of following the instructions.
I wholeheartedly disagree. What about the case where the person involved actually loves the product and wanted to talk about it anyway? This is frequently the case with gamers, models that prefer certain makeup, etc. What's worth doing is worth getting paid for, but that doesn't necessarily mean they "intend to deceive" - in fact it's the exact opposite. It's an honest endorsement.
IMO, it should only be required to be labeled as an ad if the post wouldn't have been made unless the brand paid for it.
> ... then get someone to actually like your product(, and then it won't matter that they disclose it)
When a company pays a person to endorse a product then it's in the person's best interests not to search for (or promote) a better alternative.
It's great if they would use and promote the product anyway, but it's naive to think getting paid hasn't influenced them in any way.
The law is having trouble catching up on this front, especially in a world where any YouTuber with an audience could potentially run undisclosed ads. Regulating people posting videos out of their basement sounds like a nightmare.
That said, I do my best to never support content creators that don't disclose ads or hide their disclosures in hashtags or below the "Show more" button in a YouTube description. That's not a real disclosure. You know it and I know it. That's why you put it there in the first place- because no one will see it.
It is obvious to me when ABC constantly promotes content owned by its parent company, Disney. But I often have to say to my spouse, "You know that's an ad, right?" and hear the response, "Whaaaaaat? No way, really? Now that you mention it..."
There is still a cohort of journalists hanging on to their last shred of professional ethics that will always disclose both paid consideration and corporate relationships between the subject of a story and their employer, but they seem to be slowly dying out.
YouTubers are the least of our problems. Native advertising is already firmly entrenched in mass media.
I did a little freelance on the magazine side, putting packages together to show the fashion labels what coverage the magazine was able to get. I have know idea if this cost extra or it was more of a incentive to purchase bigger ad buys in the magazine. This was nearly a decade ago, but at the time I don't believe the morning shows were paying labels or the fashion consultants, it was more of a quid pro quo.
It is really very well done if you consider it objectively. The show that is itself loaded with inlined advertisement is also able to sell traditional advertisement time in its segment breaks.
But in my own opinion, shows that do that sort of thing need to be nuked from orbit, and the glass broken up with jackhammers so that salt may be plowed into the dust underneath. I simply cannot abide the ubiquity and intrusiveness of advertisements in the current culture.
While advertisers don't explicitly ask media companies not to run negative segments, they can book a large commercial inventory and incentivize as much.
We already do that for copyright infringement, so why not use the same techniques and technology for promotion detection?
Promotion detection would be looking for any promotion of a product or service. That's an AI-complete problem.
What if you pay $1 for the trip?
What if it's 50% off the trip?
...
Is a social referral program an "ad"?
There's plenty of gray area where you're gifting something non-cash, like an experience that you are interested in anyway. Look at the Kylie Airbnb deal for instance.
There's not. Journalism and politics have this covered:
NO GIFTS.
It's really that simple.
Basically, if there is even a remote chance that the action could be misconstrued as a gift when viewed from the outside, it's politely rejected.
One time this created a funny situation where a pro sports team flew us out on their private jet. While we were in the air, they were about to hand out hats with their logo on them, and the head of our group had to stop that until he could consult the lawyers about that gift. It felt like an overreaction in the particular situation, to say the least.
Uh, every single time a "journalist" is easy on a subject so that they can get future access, that's a gift from the subject in exchange for them going easy.
Journalism as actually practiced is almost a definition of what a "gift" culture is, especially political journalism.
Good luck with that definition. Is a person wearing sponsored designer clothing on the red carpet obligated to declare that the didn't pay for it? Or does that obligation only arrive when someone takes a photo of them?
I do think that sponsored posts are a big problem, but it's exactly as much of a problem as the product placement that buffets us elsewhere in life, and equally as impossible to prevent.
Yes? How is this even a question? A company paid them in the form of an outfit for the sole purpose of having it be seen. There is no interpretation of this situation where it's not an ad.
This is already a solved problem, just let the NCAA regulators handle it [1].
1. http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/unc/genrel/auto_pdf/hand...
Well, except real life, where we need to work with facts instead of idealism. Nobody is denying it's an ad, I'm denying that it's possible to eradicate product placement. This is not a new problem for Instagram, it's a fact of life that we have always dealt with.
"I'll just print it out using my awesome $brandname $modelnumber printer"
Every day for a few weeks in a row. -_-
On the face of it, I agree with you and support the spirit of e.g. FTC advertising standards.
However, this is a much deeper problem with our culture and relying on regulatory bodies isn't going to cut it as "the media" is so fragmented now and there are so many ways to circumvent (like hiding your disclosures in hashtags).
Rather than trying to curb this with legislation, I think we should try to counter it with education. An understanding of how and why a piece of information reached you should be part of the toolbox of every literate person.
The most authentic endorsement you can have is word of mouth. This is simply being the best product on the market. But this would put advertisers out of business, and force companies to make good long lasting durable products. Neither of these things are in advertisers, or product manufacturers best interest.
Ultimately planned obsolescence, and corporation funded advertisement driven product cargo cults are far more profitable. (I.E.: iPhone, 50's-70's auto manufacturing)
Your statement boils down to How can we make corporations care about something other then profit? The answer is you can't. You misunderstand the purpose of corporations.
I wholeheartedly agree that this is common, and need to be disclosed.
However, I work for a brand that is genuinely loved (not hard: we deliver food) has cult following (think major rappers mentioning us casually as a euphemism for chilling) and if we pay anyone to endorse us (I do not know that we have in the past) we’ll probably start by actual fans. Their endorsement will be authentic in that sense.
We have sent free food to celebrities during special occasions (not money, but the equivalent is easy to make); I don’t think we’ve ever agreed with them before hand — we just knew they were going to be hungry. They generally learned we took the initiative via a public announcement (@-mention on twitter).
> How can we make corporations care about something other then profit?
I can honestly confess this corporation cares about food a lot. More than money… Well, the two are fungible.
>We have sent free food to celebrities during special occasions (not money, but the equivalent is easy to make);
>this corporation cares about food a lot. More than money… Well, the two are fungible.
What are you even trying to argue about? You admit your core argument is flawed every time you state it. It is like you don't even believe what you are posting about.
I’m missing the cognitive dissonance. We’ve surprised hungry people with food at an opportune moment, not money.
If you want a clearer discussion on the distinction, Dan Ariely has a great explanation on paying his mother-in-law for diner. I’d be happy to quote Amartya Sen or Kahneman on the same topic if you want a clearer explanation.
Problem becomes when your reach is so large essentially anyone is willing to pay you five figures to hawk anything. I can see how that would be enticing.
Ultimately we (the public) have to realize that celebs are just people, who may not have special knowledge about the kinds of products they're selling. Their value is in their reach, not their expertise, so take celebrity endorsements with a grain of salt.
Surely then, putting a clear sign saying 'Advert' or 'Sponsored' would help everyone to realize this.
I guess the best you can do as a celeb is build your brand around how you do adverts. Some radio hosts here in CA (Armstrong & Getty) say they only do adverts for products they personally use & recommend. I admit to buying a product they advertise (a belt) some years ago and it's great - I'm glad they advertised it because I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise (still wearing it!).
But you admit this is irrelevant because you don't know if that person has any in-depth knowledge. Nor do you know/trust that person.
In your scenario that person is just a voice on a radio saying Trust me I love Tacobell and eat it all the time. Trust is an interpersonal social currency, gained via social interaction. If there is no prior social interaction between the advocator, and the person being advertised too... How can there be trust?
>they only do adverts for products they personally use & recommend //
Is that a legally binding statement in the relevant jurisdiction, sounds just like the sort of thing a person who'd never used something but was only concerned about the money would say.
When I think of an ad that has someone I trust talking about a product they love or trust even though they were paid to like it, I think of podcast ads. Some of the podcasts I listen to; Hello Internet, Cortex, or ATP; been a fine experiences even with the ads because it didn't feel like a dishonest recommendation. I know they're getting paid to say what they do, and that's perfectly fine with me. Advertisers should move to make experiences like that, with transperancy, so that everyone knows what's going on, knows they're basically ads, but still trust the endorsements.
Do celebrities need to disclose they are being compensated to mention a brand on the red carpet?
Do movies need to start including #ad in scenes that have paid product placements?
The idea of endorsements and product placement go back for decades, and this is no different. What distinguishes this from the examples above, and if "ad" needs to be disclosed with influencer posts, why does it not need to be disclosed with celebrity endorsements and product placement?
While there are certainly exceptions (cough Kardashians) a heavy majority of influencers won't post about brands or products they don't genuinely like and believe their audience would be interested in. They won't muddy their name with a bad brand. So why do they need to be paid to post? Because they aren't going to spend the time to create and share content for free.
She got paid $250,000 for December post about it. From the first hand I can tell you that no - she has never tried the tea, and neither she ever needed a "detox" tea to begin with.
For the Kim instagram thing in the link - primary purpose is to promote the product. Therefore ad and disclosure required.
Red carpet - primary purpose is to be seen and increase their star power, product mention is secondary. No ad, no disclosure.
Product placement - House of Cards wasn't created to promote COD.
That said, policing intent is a blurry line and what about scenes in movies created JUST to promote a product (looking at you Adam Sandler).
I dunno. But primary purpose is the best line I can think of.
The way I see it, she has simply placed a product in her feed, the same way a film places a product in its timeline. Whether you like the practice or not, I'd treat both the same way.
Also, disclosed or not, part of the audience will inevitably figure out the ulterior motive ("Oh, look at that product placement!"), and then some will get turned off ("How blatant!"). It's up to the content creators to do this slily or tactfully enough so it doesn't backfire. Perhaps that's more important than disclosing per se.
Tagging a single Instagram post with "#ad", on the contrary, doesn't detract from other non-ad photos in the feed. Obviously if the feed is mostly advertisements, some people might find its value overall go down.
But yeah... I can argue it either way.
> Perhaps that's more important than disclosing per se.
I respectfully disagree, I don't support any ulterior or non-marked advertising. I'd rather see legislation that bans paid product placement in movies than reduced disclosure rules. But that's just me being an angry old man.
Other influencers also do not have the reach that they do, and consequently the payout is so much different.
And do you really believe their audience isn't interested in hair care products? I mean they make their own line of makeup...
I'm not defending the approach, but I feel like there's more strategy in the selection than that.
I don't think we need to require celebrities to disclose all of their endorsements, financial relationships or tax returns. Hyperbole intended. From a simply practical perspective, if they all did it, it would become meaningless and no different than not doing it. I actually think it lends them some authority because they are paid to endorse something. It implies that their opinion is of value when the endorsement is actually paying for access to their audience while implying some expertise.
I think Howard Stern is a great counterpoint to the Kardashian example. He has as much, or more power in terms of influencing a large audience. Where the Kardashians have proven themselves as simple profiteers (the Kardashian Card being the best example: http://kardashiankard.com/card-fees/), at best, while Stern has shown profound respect for his audience. He sells advertising through his show, but they are clearly identified, and he claims that his personal endorsement are genuine. I believe him.
In the end, I think the Kardashians and others that fall in to the same category are exploiting a mostly young, less discriminating audience. Given enough time they will discredit themselves.
I think trying to police celebrity disclosures is silly, and impractical, while having the potential, as mentioned above, to make it meaningless anyway.
> Do celebrities need to disclose they are being compensated to mention a brand on the red carpet?
They tend to mention brands they are actually wearing at the time. In public. I don't have much of a problem with this.
> Do movies need to start including #ad in scenes that have paid product placements?
Movies are obvious works of fiction.
I consider AirBnB's product/service to be the marketplace for temporary lodging.
I don't know what actually happened with AirBnB/Jenner, but I predict AirBnB reached out with something like "We'll find somewhere nice for you to stay if you post it". I don't consider that using AirBnB's product. The AirBnB's marketing/promotion/whatever team just short-circuited the usage of the product/service.
Of course, if AirBnB's product/service was reaching out out to me and giving me free lodging in a beautiful place for me to post on social media, then I'd be totally down with the original AirBnB tweet.
Unless one holds some principle that is able to supersede any given perceived "facts", fiction easily becomes truth, and even then it's a real struggle.
We have been studied, we have been found flawed, and those flaws are exploited for monetary gain as a matter of course.
This sums up the issue pretty well. The advertisers are acting like there must be some compromise where readers are both informed and engaged, and the reality is that knowing is what disengages them.
That might be something they can overcome through the quality of the paid content, but they cannot be allowed to overcome it by deceiving people.
Why the question? The answer is yes. It is an ad, and worse...
You realize that there is nothing new about this right? It's been happening since the dawn of capitalism. Not saying it is bad or good, just noting that it isn't new.
Looks like the girl is really spreading herself around!
Here's a Taco Bell commercial [1] Another Taco Bell commercial [2] Now we are doing Oreos! [3]
Everything undisclosed of course.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy_rqmSXpvg [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DDdBjOWXMQ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTYoI9diaQQ
Grey market indicator on the market value of the platforms themselves
I recognize that my first reaction is an elitist "who cares what losers who 'follow' celebrities get sold on".
But even when I get past that, I can't figure out why I'd care. It doesn't sound like the FTC is in the business of determining what's a legitimate from-the-heart endorsement versus what's a paid endorsement anyway.
In the end, all that really seems to matter is truth in advertising. If she's making undocumented medical claims about something, and being paid to do so, doesn't the FTC already have a right to clamp down on it? Follow the dollars.
I imagine making undocumented medical claims for free fall under 'free speech'. So all they have to do is see if she's getting paid or not.
Perhaps you've bought a couple, and they haven't lasted long or been sup-par in quality, or maybe you had one you liked, but they no longer make it. You bought the same brand, but behold, it quit sooner or it doesn't do nearly as well. And you'd really like to have one that is decent, even if you spend a bit more money. If you can't sort out which reviews are paid endorsements and which ones are heartfelt reviews, you are none the wiser. Something that is basically an ad isn't nearly as trustworthy in this case. The ads might not have been false, per se, but they aren't exactly going to give the bad with the good.
In cases like Amazon, it might be hard to catch, but when it is, you can fine the companies involved in the paid support - an ad company, the parent company, etc. (Amazon itself seems to be against this and likely willing to cooperate, so they'd not have much issue).
If you are a public figure paid 1 cent to endorse a product, then it is an ad. If you fail to clearly disclose this ad identity and relationship then it is dishonest, possibly criminal.
Nothing more to discuss. This specific situation is vastly beyond any possible gray area.
The same rules apply on Instagram. Nothing new here, just an old bad idea coming around again.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc... [2] http://celebritycred.com/history-of-endorsements/#foobox-1/0