Jensen takes a look at the idea of “blogola”, which is basically a system in which an organization pays an individual to blog on their behalf. While there are some very legitimate ethical concerns involved, I don’t see these being any bigger of an issue than the typical television commercial we see on television. Political campaigns and product advertisements often give negative, and in many cases false information and mislead consumers into the purchase of products that are not what they are portrayed to be. I don’t think that these paid blogs could do any worse. With technology and communication advancing so much, it really makes sense for corporations to have a designated blogger. As long as the information can be deemed as relatively credible, I have no problem with it. FTC seems to be really lighting into these blogging systems, but in my opinion, there are much bigger fish to fry.
Online consumer reviews have now become a seemingly more credible way to determine the worth of a product or service. Because the consumer has no “ties” of affiliation with the company or product, it seems as if there is nothing to be gained from them making a positive recommendation, other than the feeling of helping to promote a worthy product. Typically, the input of the consumer, especially if other factors (number of comments, the perceived expertise of the reviewer, the diversity of the comments) are favorable, is considered to be more genuine than the information released by the marketer. The fact that a person must have and log into an account to post a review, and is only allowed to post one comment in regards to the product are other factors that seem to give these reviews credibility.
Somewhere in the middle of these two concepts is “Word of Mouth Marketing”. Defined as “the intentional influencing of consumer to consumer communications by professional marketing techniques”, it somewhat differs from “blogola”. Whereas blogola flat out hires a person to blog on their behalf, WOMM entices customers to speak on their behalf, with the offer of prizes, or discounts. The person is not actually on payroll, but is rewarded for their input on the product or service. The writers of this piece go into detail about some of the specific strategies and methodologies used as well.
So if we are ok with blogola, or at least not as concerned as the FTC seems to be, what stops the corporations from doing the same to consumer reviews? As a result, customer reviews would lose their credibility. I don’t disagree with you on the blogging issue, as I think it will play itself out without the need to regulation, but I can see it spreading into consumer reviews if more rigid standards aren’t put into place.
I personally am not ok with blogola–I think if you are getting paid to produce content, no matter what the medium (radio, tv, blogs, etc), that content should clearly be marked as paid/sponsored. To me it is a matter of information and choice; I can’t fully evaluate what you have to say if I don’t know whether or not what you are says is motivated by some kind of compensation. But I come from radio, where payola was and is strictly forbidden.
I too would like to know if the blogger is in some way being paid to share product content. It does not mean that I would not listen to what the blogger has to say about the product, but I would probably discount the information some.