The curtain has been pulled on a deceptive new advertising tactic in which companies camouflage ads as product praise masquerading as independent blog posting.
Several companies have been exposed for launching fake blogs - known as "flogs" - in a practice that coincides with an increase in the number of real bloggers secretly paid to endorse products.
Online firm Technorati reported it was tracking more than 63 suspicious blogs.
Wily marketers have infiltrated the blogging world, paying for favourable commentary on products.
However posting product commentary without alerting readers that bloggers were compensated for their opinions is unethical and potential illegal, according to US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules.
Sony Computer Entertainment America, admitted last week that it created a bogus blog baptized "All I want for Christmas is a PlayStation Portable."
The blog was passed off as the work of an amateur hip-hop musician named "Charlie," who enthusiastically praised the PlayStation.
In a short message on the Charlie blog, Sony apologised for being "a little too clever".
The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, came under fire in October for a blog portrayed as an online journal kept by a typical US couple, named Laura and Jim, as they travelled across the country in a motor home.
The couple's blog praised Wal-Mart for letting them park their hulking recreational vehicle overnight in store parking lots and told of encountering Wal-Mart workers nationwide that praised their jobs and their employer.
Business Week magazine revealed that the couple's cross-country trip was sponsored by Wal-Mart - a fact unmentioned in the online postings.
----------------------------------------------
Some corporations want to trick you...they want to fool you...into liking them.
Sad? - Yep, pretty much.
Creates a negative image toward the company? - In my mind, it does.
Illegal? - Perhaps and I don't have a problem with that.
Underhanded advertising is a growing problem and something needs to be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment