Monday, May 14, 2007

Inevitably, Wal Mart shows up (but only briefly)

Ever since blogging hit the scene companies of all types have been struggling with ways to capitalize on their appeal without infringing on the integrity that makes them popular. This has proven to be a tricky conundrum as the WalMart/Edelman scandal debacle proved. It would seem the public holds bloggers to stricter ethical standards than they do “legitimate” news and information organizations, even though these depend on advertisement dollars to subsist. Well, recently I found a strategy that aims to monetize the blog explosion in a model that, in theory, benefits both advertisers and bloggers.

The name of the company is Pay per Post and they promise to do just this, they pay bloggers to post about companies and products. Their business model depends on linking advertisers and bloggers in the same way that ad-sense hooks up publishers and advertisers. Using PayPerPost.com advertisers create an "opportunity" for bloggers. That opportunity, along with opportunities from other advertisers, appears on a searchable index displayed to PayPerPost bloggers. The bloggers review the requirements for the opportunities along with the amount offered by the advertiser (up to $20 per post) for blogging about the topic. The blogger writes about the opportunity, PayPerPost.com staff review the content and the blogger is paid upon completing the terms of the agreement. Founder Ted Murphy was quoted as saying:

"Media companies and celebrities have been compensated for endorsement and product placement for years. Finally bloggers will be compensated for all the traffic and sales they generate when they blog about products and companies."

I think that just as is the case with product placement, a blogger that enters this system will be jeopardizing the integrity of the medium. But, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, in the world of blogging this can be an unforgivable transgression.

Still, as you can see from the video on this page, there is definitely space for freedom of expression in these early posts. Also, it is entirely possible that, as we do with TV, quality and production value will dictate our tolerance of advertising in our entertainment. This is what advertisers who post on YouTube are betting on.

The other big issue, patent in the WalMart case, is that readers are probably more put off by the deception, than by reading something someone was paid to write. To head this off Pay per Post has come up with a “disclosure badge.” The badges—a small graphic appearing directly in blog postings created by the company's participating Consumer Content Creators—allow readers to not only see who is sponsoring the content, but also to benefit from links and other information provided by the sponsor.

It will be interesting to see how long it is before the democratic nature of blogging gives way to the oligarchic models of modern mass media just as Radio did and TV never got a chance to do.

Your Assignment: Become a Pay per Post Blogger and push the envelope… how far can you go and still get paid?


P.S. A small collection of nagging thoughts:

Every day hundreds, if not thousands, of advertising impacts bombard the average person. This is annoying, ugly and, most relevant to this particular discussion, demeaning.

Through products like DVR's and Firefox extensions that allow users to eliminate advertising from the internet, consumers are pushing back.

I propose a new terminology: customer dignity.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary dignity is "The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect." As marketers we usually listen to these words and think: "how do I make my customers think I respect them?"

Maybe we should be thinking "How do I develop mutual respect between my customer and me?"


I believe products like Tivo should be an aberration. Whole industries have cropped up dedicated to help us avoid advertising, what message does this send? It seems consumers have been slowly pushed to their limits in terms of when, how and especially why companies communicate with them.


We have convinced ourselves that if our messages are relevant then we are somehow avoiding the reason people want to skip ads. I think we are minimizing a negative effect, we are leaving less of a footprint. We haven't solved the real issue.


I believe consumers have an underlying feeling of injustice, a dirty feeling from the branded life we live in.


The Masters Golf Tournament is a marketing anomaly. During coverage CBS broadcasts only 6 minutes of advertising for every hour of programming.This is caring about customers in real and tangible way.


Shouldn't cable TV have less advertisement than network TV? In theory I'm paying a subscription right? Only the movie channels truly embody the idea of cable TV and they are the only people who are actually growing their audience.


We can, and probably will, find an infinite number of empty spaces to fill with a sales pitch; I don't believe this means we should. Don't try to sell me every opportunity you get, I will stop listening to you and, if you push it, stop buying from you.


Should advertisers be concentrating, as I know them to be, on how to circumvent Tivo, or should they consider why DVR's exist at all? I believe if they figure out the latter they could take an important step towards achieving one of the most important competitive advantages out there, loyalty.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course, advertising is aimed at dull-witted automatons who passively slurp from the tits of popular culture, overpaying for shirts emblazoned with oversized logos of the manufacturer (or licensee thereof) and wearing $8,000 watches that can keep time almost as well as a $20 casio ™. This generation does, in fact, just do it. They do it, over and over again, because they feel entitled to wear what the hip kids are wearing.

When we were kids, we used to live in a paper bag.

We were lucky to get a new car when we turned 16, not so exigent that it had to be a red BMW, just that it was a BMW (or comparable German sports car), a new one being better, of course, than a slightly used one. The real thing is, we wanted the Ultimate Driving Machine, not whatever the advertising of the day told us what we wanted. I remember a time when a sandwich was only that, a sandwich (while, of course, other products available to us were by far preferable, because they constituted an entire meal, like a Manwich). It’s important to know the difference, with the critical eye of a savvy consumer, not some poor, drabby slob who shuffles off to work in the pre-dawn hours to do his menial bakery job of fat-frying doughy tori on a very punctual basis. A forgettable task to say the least…

No, nothing about today’s society is really seeking to find the meat in popular culture. “Where is the beef?” was the question that plagued my generation. Kids today are looking for some sort of panacea for their problems, they want to plop plop fizz fizz find that relief for whatever it is.

No… nothing about today’s society has the virtues of my generation.

Today, advertisers are better served to place their products in the “content” itself. I was watching an ad for sony erricson phones and sony vaio laptops but it turned into an ad for celebrity Texas Hold ‘em and Ford motorcars. It was a really long and violent commercial, and in the end I realized it was really an ad for Omega watches. By the time the ad was over, I was bored and walked out of the movie theatre and didn’t even stay to watch Casino Royale. I understand it’s supposed to be really good. It had better be, at 10 bucks a ticket, but I just ran out of time.

I think I need a new watch.

Bartholomew Buzz said...

Here, here boopieman!!! I grew up in shoebox in middle of the road myself and I know where your coming from. I too am tired of having to swallow the gruel served up by advertisers before the main course of a knuckle sandwich (for make no mistake, that is what Casino Royale is!!) But my question is: Can we served quality content without having to swallow the hors d’oeuvre's of extreme commercialism?

bernardo said...

A bit more fun on the Edelman case: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/02/070402fa_fact_goldberg

Also, look up forum "smurfing", ie shills planted in online communities to promote x products, often with several identities per board, and with a per-post payment model.

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