This Post is Not Sponsored By Anyone
June 27th, 2005
CMO Magazine alerts us to a Boston Globe article reporting on how bloggers are selling out. Here’s a taste:
Dot Flowers’s ad agency paid Cutler $5 this spring to promote the florist and put a link to its website on his blog …. Cutler, who does not disclose the payment on his blog, is one of more than 2,000 bloggers whom marketer USWeb enlisted to hawk products and services.
This story ought to raise all kinds of hell among bloggers. Should bloggers reveal these sorts of payments? Absolutely, especially in a world where we expect reporters to reveal when there are possible conflicts of interest in their reporting, particularly in business stories. (You’ve seen it a million times: “So-and-so is owned by our parent company this-and-such.”)
Ed Shull, a USWeb executive, says: “In our opinion, paying bloggers is no different than Tiger Woods getting money to wear the Nike logo.”
Fair enough. But Tiger’s getting millions. Everyone knows it and understands what that kind of sponsorship is all about. Bloggers are selling out the integrity of their blogs for a small pile of pennies.
“Bloggers are more trusted, I think, because they are human,” says Jeff Jarvis in this New Media Musings blog entry, and by and large I think he’s probably right. But maybe being human also means being greedy. Also fair enough. But if you want to make a couple of pennies off your blog, at least be above board about it. Go sign up with Adsense or Blogads.
Wreckless Eric famously sang, “Take the cash.” But I bet even Eric would have walked away from a five-spot if it meant compromising his principles.
Takeaway for marketers: If you’re going to advertise on blogs, don’t try and deceive blog readers. The deception may backfire. It’s not worth the risk.