Working with brands is a hot button topic at the moment. In this golden era of Australian Mummyblogging, everyone is being pitched by brands, asked to attend brand events and promote stuff to their followers.
I was lucky enough to be invited to Sydney this week to attend a brand event hosted by Colgate. You probably saw my guilty tweets yesterday about how I need to brush my teeth more often and my frustration that despite Amy being obsessive about toothbrushing, her teeth continue to fall apart thanks to Ehlers Danlos. Yay us.
The event wasn’t all about teeth however, the main message was about trust. With Colgate being named Australia’s Most Trusted Brand, they wanted to discuss trust with bloggers and how to increase our trust, by working with trusted brands. Which is an interesting concept, if you think about it. Previously working with brands was thought to decrease trust, but now I’m not so certain.
As bloggers, our reputation is the most important thing we have. Our blogs live and die by our reputation and someone whose audience loses trust in them is not going to have an audience for very much longer.
Brand events are all the rage and this is fantastic, for bloggers and for brands. But are we really thinking about which brands we align our names and reputations alongside?
This is important to think about. If a brand reaches out to bloggers and works with 10 bloggers and then ends up in the media for bad practise, then this reflects on the blogger. We might not like this fact, especially if we didn’t know that the brand was about to land in hot water (think BP oil spill, Nestle third world practise).
Whether we like it or not, brands that we work with DO reflect on our reputation.
To be fair, brands that we review for reflect less on our reputations – especially if the review given was balanced and honest – than brands that we work with. Working with means writing about, promoting to our followers as a good brand to be part of and accepting sponsorship.
Working with brands, while only one small part of blogging, continues to be something that many of us want to do. I think I have a responsibility to think about the reputation of a brand before working with them, in order to not harm my own reputation.
We ended our event yesterday with a round table discussion on trust, relationships with brands, Klout, PR and how to grow traffic. It was honestly a fantastic session, and I am pleased to have been able to be involved.
So now my question is: How do you feel about blogger trust and reputation? Does someone promoting a crappy brand to their followers automatically make you think less of them?
awesome post and with so many of the same questions that have been flying around my head for a long time…
I’m quite uncertain about how much I would want to align myself with a brand or company. What sort of things I would feel comfortable doing, and with which companies….
I think, for me, I can still respect a blogger who promise a product or company I disagree with, as long as they know what they are doing…. they’ve done some research, they’ve looked at what they are representing and are personally ok with all aspects of that. Eg if someone was happy to represent Nestle despite their practices and was open and honest about that… while I don’t agree with them, and I could never support that company, I could still have respect for the blogger. But if a blogger aligned themselves with Nestle without looking into their practices and either denied it or stuck their heads in the sand… then I’d loose respect.
The hard thing for me is, it seems so hard to know whether big brands have their finger in a pie that I may find unethical… which makes me very very wary.
Sorry for the essay but I find this topic really interesting!
I tend to feel the same way – reviews don’t bother me in the slightest (even if they’re for brands or products I personally wouldn’t use) and neither does advertising, provided the blogger has thought about what the advertising says about them and is happy with that.
I’m thinking more about accepting sponsorship from, or heavily promoting a product that they’re either paid to promote, or have been asked to promote, without thinking about reputation of the brand and how it reflects back on them.
See, I’m accepting sponsorship from Kelloggs because a) I think they’re good company and b) I like the way they’re heading towards making their cereal more healthy and “mum approved”. Does that make sense?
How far do you think you need to dig into a ccompany you are going to represent, (ling term or in a deeper way than a review or basic ad)? Say a company like Kellogs if your partnership is just to do with cereals etc then do you need to look further into who owns that company and what else they do?
This is what I find difficult. For example there are so many companies that are now owned by nestle that I have no idea about… How do I get enough information to make a really informed decision, or is that going overboard?
Goodness you are making me think! 🙂
I hadn’t really thought about it before? Which is good, because now I am.
For me personally, I tend to just pay attention to what I’ve heard about the brand, the general feeling amongst people I read/talk to and my own experiences.
I think we all have to do what feels right in our own gut, and be aware of what those choices might mean to other people and still be happy to do it.
Oh and also, I think that when it comes to big business in particular, someone is always going to have a problem with a company, regardless of which company it is that we’re working with. We can’t listen to everyone, and I’m a big fan of going with my gut regarding trust and brands 🙂
I’m fairly hardball about this, because my unequivocal answer to your question (“Does someone promoting a crappy product or brand to their followers automatically make you think less of them?”) is HELL YEAH. I don’t really like or read bloggers that are heavily tied into brand promotion even of brands that I like or find innocuous; promoting a brand that’s problematic would absolutely turn me off that blog.
I do see a real difference between brand promotion, advertising and product reviews. Advertising doesn’t bug me at all unless it’s massively intrusive vusually, because I can (and do) ignore it and read the blog content, which is what I came for. (That said, I think bloggers still need to be mindful of the advertising they accept and what that says about them, assuming they don’t get it exclusively through an aggregator).
I also have zero problem with people doing product reviews (I do them occasionally myself) and I would not change my opinion of a blog even if it later emerged that the maker of the product was in some way reprehensible. An honest review is an honest review; I’ll read it if the subject interests me, not if it doesn’t, but it doesn’t “taint” (yes, yes, I know that word has associations…) the blog for me in the same way that brand tie-ins do.
Of course I may well be talking out of my arse here. I often am 🙂
I actually agree with everything you say here. I have zero problem with product reviews, especially if that review is balanced. I think it’s more about bloggers doing the “sell” for brands – if that brand has a dodgy rep, then it reflects on the blogger.
There is a huge difference between brand promotion, advertising and product reviews and this post is about the brand promotion, more than advertising for and reviewing for.
Yeah, indeed. So overall, in terms of brand promotion, I think you have to be diligent about your research and really careful how you handle it, or you risk a) reputational damage and b) readership loss if the brand promotion (even of a good / innocuous brand) gets too intrusive or irritating for your readers.
I know that brand promotion isn’t something I’m comfortable doing on my blog, even though there are some things / brands that I like an awful lot and am happy to rabbit about in a non-paid capacity. (For instance, I’m working on a post about gluten-free cake and cookie packet mixes at the moment, just because I have Thoughts that it is Very Important that the world shares!) I guess I just don’t want to be beholden, y’know?
But it’s different for me as I’ve explicitly decided not to aim for income generation from my blog. The occasional free DVD to review is nice, I do not deny it, and I like getting ads every now and then from Nuffnang, more because of the uber cool events & stuff they organise than anything 😉 But brand partnership is not for me.
I’ll be interested to see how it plays out for other people, though. I’m sure it can be done well, and I’m sure you’ll demonstrate exactly how that’s done.
I love a post to make me think! I tend to agreed with Kate above. When it comes to reviews and advertising I don’t think I would stop reading a blog I love. Might be different if they were totally sold out to the company – but most of us are just personal bloggers who get pitches.
I agree too, when it comes to reviews or advertising, I think there is a lot more leeway and it wouldn’t make me think less of a blogger for reviewing or accepting advertising from a brand that was less than stellar.
But I think when it comes time to promote a brand or product (not just review) and you’re working with that brand to do so, then you’ve got to think a bit harder about who you want to work with.
I think it depends on the relationship that I have with that person. I am more likely to be able to overlook something when it’s someone who is a friend. Of course there are limits, for example, if you started promoting something I found really morally questionable, then I might not feel so good about visiting your blog. Then again, I’d like to think that people I know fairly well wouldn’t do something like that. There aren’t a lot of products/companies someone could be involved with that I would find really, truly offensive. As long as it’s not being rammed down my throat every five seconds and there is still decent content on the blog then I don’t mind. When I don’t know someone as well, it would take less to make me stop reading. I have no idea if all that made sense, having a bad day, sorry if it’s confusing!
I think the being ‘rammed down your throat’ aspect is likely to turn people off any blog, regardless of how much we love the blogger who is doing it.
Great post veronica! I’m just discovering and learning about this world of blogger/brand promotion and reviews. I have only done one small review myself, however your post was thought-provoking. I think if I didn’t really know a blogger (ie in terms of being familiar with their regular material, views, thoughts etc) and they promoted a brand that was controversial, I would probably question whether I wanted to keep reading that blog etc. You’re absolutely right – it’s like advertising in the “non-blogging world” – how many sponsors ditched Toger Woods after his infidelity fiasco? They didn’t want to be tarred with the same brush! Same goes for bloggers!
Thought provoking is always good. I always try to stay thinking about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.
Lots of people ditched Tiger Woods and also a lot of advertisers ditched a very well known and popular blogger after she got caught in major controversy.
A fantastic piece of writing, something that gives a lot to think about. I’m very new to blogging so it’s very unlikely any advertising or sponsorship will come my way anytime soon. What I’ve decided after some thought is that currently I wont do any reviews, promotions etc unless I really like the product/brand and already use them or want to use them. For instance I was going to write a post about the July toy sales as they are the only way I afford Christmas, then when I saw all the sponsored posts around I decided that it would be silly to write my post, so I was really pleased to get one of the Nuffnang product talks. I echo what Kate said above though it’s very hard to know what pies the big companies have their fingers in. That’s really worrying…what if you supported something thinking they were okay then found out later about un-ethical behaviour?
I think you’d be surprised at how fast things can happen. I like that I’m making you think – thinking about something and working out where I stand on it (and why) helps me work out what I will and won’t do in this online space.
I’ve had very little experience with brands, but I would definitely think carefully about which ones I would work with. And yes, I think it does damage a blogger’s reputation if they choose to align with a crappy brand. I have a wish list of brands I’d like to work with, but having read your post, if I was to ever actually work with them, I would do a lot more research.
It’s not even so much about doing research, as knowing what perception people will have if you work with Brand A and deciding if you can live with that.
Hi Veronice, I see you are a paper star now!! I saw the article in the Mercury – great pic and info – good on you!
Thank you for posting this. I’m currently in the process of researching advertising and sponsorship for my own blog. I’ve mulled the topic of sponsor reputation and how it aligns with blogger reputation over in my head a million times. I’ve tried to prioritze “traits” that I think are most valuable to me. Right now I’m thinking that I really like companies that are easily accessible for dialogue. I find that in this day an age of computer technology, it’s hard to actually talk to a real person representing a company. I have my eye on two companies right now Fenom Kimonos and Predator BJJ Clothing Co. I am able to contact both companies online and get an almost immediate response. Predator has an excellent Facebook page. I’ve gone so far as to try to annoy these guys. No matter what I do, they remain good natured, and helpful. I think this type of repoire is the main thing that is missing in modern marketing. However, I know that I don’t know everything and I do value the opinion of others. What traits do you value in a sponsor, brand, or company?
Short answer – yes, definitely.
But that’s complicated by the fact that people have different definitions of what is a crappy brand and what I think is bad someone else might think is good – there are Mummy wars for a reason. And it’s got nothing to do with their reasons for supporting that brand – if someone has made what I consider to be a bad decision, of course it’s going to affect the way I view them and view their credibility.
But one of the kickers is also what is meant by ‘working with a brand.’ The occasional promotional tweet, no problem. Working behind the scenes to help them understand social media, great. Helping to organise events, go for it. But if you’re going to be paid to write about the brand on your blog, that’s advertising.
I definitely think advertising can be done well and that sponsored posts or advertorials can be just as entertaining as independent posts. The problem is that often it isn’t. And it definitely has a higher bar to get over – we read something we know is sponsored more critically, so more work needs to go in to make it entertaining as well. So an increase in advertising on a blog could easily lose me as a reader, even if it’s for a brand I have no problems with, because I’m there to be entertained not advertised to.
I have actually been thinking alot about this lately!
Brand loyalty is so subjective. You may love Pampers but I may loathe them – does it make me think less of you if you promote them? Nope.
What *may* sway me is if you (not YOU as in YOU but in the blogger concerned) support a product that is not animal friendly or made by a company that pollutes etc etc.
South African companies aren’t big on sponsoring blogs yet but when they do I make sure its a product I at least can put my name behind even I dont use it!
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