TELL THE TRUTH
Last week in Chicago, over 1,500 bloggers attended the BlogHer ’09 conference. A bunch of marketers also attended, and when brands and people who write about those brands are in the same room, swag bags inevitably appear. (For the uninitiated, a swag bag is - not surprisingly - a bag filled with free goodies and handed out at events. Kinda like Halloween without having to go door to door.) There were reports of swag bags mysteriously disappearing, some saying they were stolen from a luggage cart and others claiming people were taking more than one.
The backdrop to this event is two different attempts to monitor blogger integrity. At one end of the spectrum, the Federal Trade Commission is considering an update to testimonial guidelines that would require bloggers to disclose any connections they have to marketers – including products they receive for free. This stipulation is more than a bit controversial, as it would put different requirements on bloggers than it does on newspaper journalists, who are not expected to claim relationships they have to products or brands.
The grassroots counterpart to the FTC standards is an online movement initiated by four bloggers, called BlogWithIntegrity.com. Claiming to have received 200 signatures in the first 24 hours, this voluntary community involves signing a pledge consisting of promises like:
“I disclose my material relationships, policies and business practices. My readers will know the difference between editorial, advertorial, and advertising, should I choose to have it. If I do sponsored or paid posts, they are clearly marked.”
“When collaborating with marketers and PR professionals, I handle myself professionally and abide by basic journalistic standards.”
“I always present my honest opinions to the best of my ability.”
Those who sign the pledge can also download a “badge” that they can proudly display on their blogs, and the founders hope that this badge will eventually represent the equivalent of the blogosphere’s Good Housekeeping “Stamp of Approval.” In an interview with Ad Age, one of the founders shared that she was tired of mom blogs being portrayed as “shills” and “whores” taking “blogola” and created this pledge to combat that perception.
A fundamental question lies at the heart of this activity: Are bloggers, once thought to represent the purest form of brand advocacy, merely just another sales channel for marketers? Is the promise of free product and paid advertising luring bloggers to the dark side? If you can’t trust Mom-101.com and MotherhoodUncensored.com to offer an unbiased opinion, who can you trust?
The Internet theoretically represents the marketplace at its best – unfiltered, democratic and self-regulated. However, the need for standards like the FTC guidelines and the BlogWithIntegrity.com pledge suggest that the enticement of endorsements may be more powerful than the constitutional right of an impartial opinion.
What do you think? Honestly?
(Mary Ellen Muckerman)