As more brands explore and embrace social media and word of mouth marketing, we need to increase our vigilance for strong ethics. The true power of social media marketing lies in how it can amplify word of mouth. Brands want customers and fans to recommend their product or speak positively around a topic. People want to hear the true opinions of people like themselves - what they think about a product, a hotel-stay, a health regimen and so forth. The minute that opinion is proven dishonest, the whole promise of word of mouth marketing is diminished.
We need to be careful.
Everyone seems to agree that "full and transparent disclosure" of the material relationship between influencers (bloggers, twitterers, forum-participants, product reviewers and more) is the basis for an ethical approach to brands and influencers working together. Here is one element of the comprehensive WOMMA ethics code:
"We comply with FTC regulations that state: "When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.""
At WOMMA, members recently went through a process to focus our industry-leading code of ethics on the most pressing issue this year - what do we mean by "best-practice disclosure?" The WOMMA Honesty ROI (honesty of relationship, opinion, and identity) continue to be a brands best protection. It serves as a guide for all marketers within an organization to design their WOMM efforts in a way that protects customers, their brand and delivers the most effective results.
Here's another excerpt from the WOMMA code:
"We stand against marketing practices whereby the marketer or its representatives provide goods, services or compensation to the consumer to make recommendations, reviews or endorsements without full, meaningful, and prominent disclosure."
Most marketers know the big issues by now - thou shalt not seed message boards with false messages from shady identities, thou shalt not hide a material relationship with a blogger, thou shalt not spam comments with brand messages and so forth.
Time to Define Best-Practice Disclosure
Now we need to define with concrete examples what exactly we mean by "full, meaningful, and prominent disclosure" or, simply, "best-practice disclosure."
When an influencer tweets about a product they received from a brand, how can they let their followers know of that material relationship within the limits of 140 characters? If you invited 11 members of an influencer panel to corporate campus to learn about products and services and you paid only their travel expenses - including a per diem - how must both parties disclose to the general consumer? There is no question of whether these must be disclosed. The question remains 'how.' As the Internet changes so swiftly, we must not put the burden of 'social media literacy'on the consumer. We must protect the consumer and, in effect, the brand. This is what will help word of mouth marketing grow as an effective discipline with ever increasing postive impact.
Clear "Terms of Engagement"
Let me take one example from the annals of Influencer Panels. Whenever brands assemble and engage a group of Influencers - Walmart's 11 Moms, FritoLay's Fab 15, or Sony's new DigiDads - they could satisfy any concerns by posting a clear "Terms of Engagement" somewhere accessible (don't make me define "accessible", we should all get that one). In normal language (not legalese, CYA, obtuse language) this spells out the material relationship.
Sony DigiDads & Disclosure
Now I am familiar with the consultants behind the recently released DigiDads from Sony. They seem to be a good group. Essentially DigiDads is an Influencer panel of popular Dad bloggers charged with trying Sony products and sharing about them online. They are loaned the products and are not paid in any way. There is no obligation that they write anything never mind something positive. How do I know this? Well, it wasn't easy. I first went to the Sony page that promote the DigiDads. A brief statement was inconclusive:
"Each participant will receive various Sony products on loan and will be given different assignments that capture their family experiences using the products. We don't want to give away all the details yet, but we can tell you that they'll be asked to use everything form our latest televisions to our VAIO PCs..."
Next, I went to the initial blog posts from some of the DigiDads themselves. They echoed the "product-loan" terms but weren't any more specific about potential other forms of compensation. I read one of my regular reads - PaidContent.org - which came out with some solid clarity:
"First, the dads aren't getting paid for the products, and they have to return them when the project's finished. That's not to say that mommy-bloggers all keep their products, eitherâ€"but it's easier to track items like digital cameras vs. food, toiletries or baby supplies. Sony also chose not to drive sales through affiliate retail ads on the blogs, though it's not clear how or whether the posts will be branded as promotional content."
Next, I watched one or two of the videos from the DigiDads like this one from Max Kalehoff where he unequivocally says "No Payola" in an onscreen graphic.
Long story-short, I believe there is no other material relationship between the bloggers and Sony beyond what I presume is a short term loan of the product (yes, there is a difference between a 2 month loan of a flat screen TV and a 2 year-long "loan").
Adopt a Terms of Engagement
Things would have been easier and clearer, if Sony published a simple Terms of Engagement like:
"Sony engaged the DigiDads because each is a respected dad blogger with an eye for "tech." They earned that respect through the quality of their content and the honesty of their opinion. We want each of them to have a useful experience with relevant Sony products and share whatever they care to with their followers about those experiences.
We will loan them products for different periods of time (none for more than a couple of months). We want them to have enough time to apply those products to their lives. We have asked them to share their experience with their followers through narrative, images and video but how and whether they do so is up to them. What they share is their own opinion. We hope our products do well under their scrutiny and we look forward to all of their feedback.
We have not paid them or in any other way compensated them for their efforts beyond the product loans. (or if this was the case, they might say - "we invited the DigiDads to visit Sony product HQ in New Jersey and compensated them for modest travel expenses...") "
I would then ask each of the participants to link to this statement such that they receive the full benefit of these clear terms. That would do it. As a brand marketer, please consider adopting a simple Terms of Engagement to clearly state your material relationship. That is one of the areas that the FTC is focused on and we are all better served if we voluntarily define and adopt "best practice disclosure."
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