Mom Bloggers Debate Ethics Of 'Blog-Ola'

Thanks to 'Christine C.' for bringing this to my attention! We discuss this in class - the ethics around blogging for products. This is a good status update on the discussion

July 27, 2009 from NPR

The growing rift in the blogosphere over what some are calling "blog-ola" was among the issues discussed at the fifth annual Blog-Her conference in Chicago.

"Blog-ola" is the free goodies, products, trips and other perks many marketers are giving to bloggers in hopes of getting favorable publicity or positive reviews. It's a hot topic among "mommy-bloggers" in particular, who are proving to be quite influential with their readers.

More than 1,500 people attended the conference, a mere fraction of the tens of thousands of women who blog.

Omar Gallaga, the Austin American-Statesman's technology culture correspondent, says many of the mommy bloggers he has spoken to admit to writing only favorable reviews and receiving free products. He says that over the past few years, mom bloggers have become an attractive demographic for marketers.

"Mom blogs [are] shifting toward product reviews and things that attract more viewers," he says. "A lot of them are finding they get even more readers ... by specializing in a specific niche."

Many are like Kristen Chase, the Atlanta-based author of Motherhood Uncensored, who started blogging four years ago to connect with other moms.

"I was a Yankee transplant living in Mississippi," she says. "I just married a military guy and I felt completely out of my comfort zone, and I was pregnant by surprise and I just didn't know anyone."

Liz Gumbinner of New York, started her blog, Mom-101, for similar reasons.

"When I found myself with a baby after 35 years of not having had a baby, I had a slow learning curve and I was looking to connect," she says.

Both found other mothers with whom they poured out their hearts and souls in their blogs, and up sprang an increasingly powerful online community.

With mothers controlling upwards of 80 percent of household spending, it was only a matter of time before mommy bloggers, and now Twitterers, were reviewing and promoting products and services.

Companies from Wal-Mart and Kmart to Ragu and Michelin tires work with mom bloggers, and in some cases, Gumbinner says, lines are being blurred.

"Bloggers used to have sponsors sponsor their writing," she says. "Now, they're actually writing for sponsors, and I think that's changed the dynamic of the blogosphere a great deal."

Advertising on blogs used to be separated from editorial content, but increasingly, Gumbinner says, they are mixed together.

"To some degree, it's gone from a very authentic community to one where, unfortunately, people are often questioning the integrity and motives of a blog," she says.

Some say the problem lies with the PR and marketing firms that inundate the mommy bloggers with free product offers and trips in exchange for reviews.

Trisha Haas of the site MomDot says that promotional swag almost guarantees positive reviews.

"We're receiving a product for free. We're excited it came in the mail. We're going to possibly get traffic off of it, so by being positive, that's the feeling we're getting," she says. "Is it authentic? I'm not sure."

Haas and the other bloggers of MomDot are calling for a PR blackout the week of Aug. 9.

Some in the blogosphere, however, say what is really needed is for bloggers to be more upfront in disclosing whether they are paid or getting free products. The site Blog With Integrity is asking bloggers to sign and post an ethical pledge.

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is considering new guidelines to help clarify what constitutes advertising in the blogosphere.

U.K. Government Issues Official Twitter Guide For Employees

July 28, 2009 | by Christopher Nickson

The British government has issued an official guide on using Twitter for staff, but at 20 pages it would take 259 Tweets to transmit.

In the UK, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has written an official guide for using the department's corporate Twitter account. Twitter, of course, is the micro-blogging service where messages can’t be longer than 140 characters. The guide, on the other hand, runs to 20 pages, which, the Guardian calculates, is the equivalent of 259 separate Tweets.

Head of corporate channels, Neil Williams, who authored the guide, said:

"I was surprised by just how much there was to say and quite how worth saying it is."

The guide suggests spending under an hour a day running department Twitter streams. It should be presaged by a discussion of possible Tweets at morning meetings, and e-mails to ministers’ offices for more material. It also suggests "insights from ministers" and "updates on their movements" in a light style. But the guide does realize the Big Brother problem that might follow in government departments following other Twitter users:

“However, once anyone does follow a Whitehall Twitter stream it recommends they should automatically be "followed back" on the grounds that it is not only good etiquette, but could result in a poor Twitter reputation if not done and in extreme cases could lead to the account being suspended.”

This being government, of course, everything has to be approved for release first, including Tweets.

Movie studios try to harness "Twitter effect"

Fri Jul 17, 2009 4:19pm EDT

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Audiences are voicing snap judgments on movies faster and to more people than ever before on Twitter, and their ability to create a box office hit or a flop is forcing major studios to revamp marketing campaigns.

The stakes are especially high this summer season when big budget movies like "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," which opened on Wednesday, play to a core audience of young, plugged-in moviegoers.

Box office watchers say Twitter, a micro-blogging service that allows anyone to post on-the-fly wisecracks for all the world to see, is the latest weapon in an arsenal of cell phones and computers that audiences use to critique films quickly, often when they are still sitting in theaters.

Such word-of-mouth publicity from fan to fan can boost, or bomb, ticket sales.

"Has everything speeded up? The answer is yes," said Adam Fogelson, Universal's president of marketing and distribution. "Depending on how big your opening day audience is, word-of-mouth starts playing a factor immediately," he said.

Film marketers look at weekly declines in ticket sales to judge fan buzz. In recent years those "drops" have widened significantly as communication has speeded up thanks to the Internet and more recently social networking services like Twitter and Facebook.

This summer, which is the most lucrative movie season and can make up as much as 40 percent of annual box office, ticket revenues for new films have dropped 51 percent, on average, from week No. 1 to week No. 2, a figure matched only in 2007, according to tracking firm Box Office Mojo.

"If people don't like the movie now on Friday it can die by Saturday," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of tracking firm Hollywood.com Box Office.

BRUNO GETS TWITTERED

Last Friday, actor Sacha Baron Cohen's gay-themed comedy "Bruno," which was distributed by Universal Pictures, made an impressive one-day debut of $14.4 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices, but the next day it suffered a large single-day drop, falling 39 percent to $8.8 million.

Media reports speculated that "Bruno" suffered from the "Twitter effect," meaning audiences reacted quickly online to raunchy scenes of sex and nudity, scaring people away.

Soon after the movie's opening, Twitter was awash with comments such as this from user Cathy Zhang: "Some scenes from Bruno I'll never erase from my mind." On the flip side, many Twitter commentators raved about "Bruno."

Universal's Fogelson said even Twitter comments that seem critical can be good publicity because they show people are passionate about the movie and can spark discussion that increases attendance. He attributed "Bruno's" lopsided opening day not to negative fan buzz, but to an unusually large crowd of Cohen's fans rushing to see the film on its first day.

Hollywood has a long history of both embracing and spurning new technology. In the case of Twitter, it is giving an early embrace. Sony Pictures, for instance, has been notably aggressive, creating Twitter pages for upcoming movies "District 9," "Julie & Julia" and "The Ugly Truth."

Using Twitter, actor Ashton Kutcher has raised his profile and that of his production company among the most tech-savvy, and he is not alone. Filmmakers and actors often "tweet" from the set with the blessing of publicists looking to create interest in a film.

"As much as it seems chaotic, it's not. It's just extremely quick and real-time," said online marketing consultant Gordon Paddison.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

© Thomson Reuters 2009

Media Moguls Twitter Over Slump, Not Takeovers, in Sun Valley

By Andy Fixmer and Brett Pulley

July 11 (Bloomberg) -- Media moguls Rupert Murdoch and Howard Stringer attend the annual Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, to kick the tires on new businesses. This year, they didn’t find much.

Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., and Stringer, his counterpart at Tokyo-based Sony Corp., said separately at the conference this week that they won’t bid on Twitter Inc., the Web messaging service, signaling Internet businesses have become less attractive to media companies stung by the recession.

That’s a departure from recent retreats sponsored by the New York-based investment bank. In 2007, CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves held talks that led to the $1.7 billion purchase of CNet Networks, the online technology news company. Sling Media founder Blake Krikorian said he started discussions in Sun Valley that led EchoStar Corp. to pay $380 million for his company, which lets users watch their home TV services online.

“It’s not a club I’m looking to join,” Stringer, 67, said in an interview. “A lot of people are doing well making very little money.”

Slumping advertising sales are overshadowing the usual interest traditional media companies show in acquisitions, David Winters, CEO of Wintergreen Advisers LLC, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, said at the conference. The company managed $1.03 billion as of June 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Murdoch, 78, and Stringer told reporters in Sun Valley this week they are interested in companies with profit and growth potential.

“I don’t see an end to the downturn, and I can’t predict when we’ll start to see a rebound,” Murdoch said in an interview.

Cash Hoard

New York-based News Corp., owner of the Fox network, Wall Street Journal, cable channels, film studios and satellite broadcasting interests, will hold on to its $6.05 billion in cash until the recession ends, Murdoch said.

News Corp. fell 6 cents to $8.17 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The Class A shares have declined 10 percent this year. Sony’s U.S. traded shares lost 60 cents to $23.85 on the New York Stock Exchange and have gained 9.1 percent.

Traditional media companies and newer Internet businesses face a similar dilemma, trying to get online users to pay for their products, cable billionaire John Malone told reporters at the conference.

Television, film and publishing companies must find a way to charge Internet users for content they provide, said Malone, 67, the chairman of Liberty Media Corp. Some are running out of time as they struggle to generate online sales, he said.

Paying Customers

Internet companies including San Francisco-based Twitter and Google Inc.’s YouTube will need to sell subscriptions to make money, Malone said.

Without new pay models, the Internet will drain profits at media conglomerates as it has at newspapers, said Malone, who runs Liberty Media from Englewood, Colorado. Companies must find ways to be compensated, just as cable operators convinced consumers to pay for TV after decades of free broadcasts.

Mountain View, California-based Google is looking for acquisitions, CEO Eric Schmidt said in an interview with Bloomberg television.“We have talked a lot with Twitter,” Schmidt said at a press conference in Sun Valley.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brett Pulley in Sun Valley, Idaho, at bpulley@bloomberg.net; Andy Fixmer in Sun Valley, Idaho, at afixmer@bloomberg.net.

Top 10 Ironic Ads From History

WOW. This is amazing. From the Consumerist:

Remember when you could buy barbiturates for the baby? Cover your house with asbestos? Or get heroin from the doctor? Okay, probably not, but thanks to the immortal beauty of advertising, you can take a trip back in time. Here's our pick of some of the most ironic ads in American history.

UNION CARBIDE
"Science helps build a new India"

Ah, the innocent days before a Union Carbide plant in India obliterated everyone in sight. In 1984, Union Carbide's plant in Bhopal released 42 tons of toxic gas into the air, ultimately killing about 25,000 people. The stench of this "new India" remains to date, in fact, as the Yes Men have duly pointed out.

(Image via Copyranter)

CORVAIR (1960)

The Corvair in action!
Impaling drivers with steering wheels!
Leaking oil!
Spiraling out of control!

You may remember the Corvair as the focus of Ralph Nader's classic book Unsafe at Any Speed. (This, before Nader had grown senile and was busy saving the country from itself.) If your family had a Corvair and didn't die in it, please be sure to go on about that in comments because that disproves everything. Considered one of TIME's 50 Worst Cars of All Time.

ASBESTOS (1981)
"When life depends on it, you use asbestos"

Okay, sure, when you need to get out of a burning building fast, asbestos may give you a few extra minutes. But you better be wearing a respirator because when that fucker collapses, that asbestos is getting in your lungs, where it will fester for years before killing you mercilessly. (Wait, did we mention 9/11?)

(Image via Copyranter)

DISTAVAL (Thalidomide), circa 1960
"This child's life may depend on the safety of Distaval"

Who says advertising doesn't tell the truth? Sadly, this slogan was more true than anyone expected at the time. Distaval was a brand name for thalidomide, a drug that causes serious birth defects. Think flipper babies and death. This sedative-hypnotic, commonly prescribed to stressed-out moms, was advertised as "especially suitable for infants" as well. (On a side note, am I sick for longing for the days when it was okay to sedate your baby?)

(Image via Bonkers Institute)

DuPONT'S CELLOPHANE BABIES

Parents who tired of drugging their babies could always turn to cellophane to keep them quiet. Permanently quiet, in fact. In 1959, Life and other media sources scared readers with "the latest household peril" — plastic dry cleaning bags — so we're betting this ad dates prior to that.

(Image via Copyranter)

DUTCH BOY LEAD PAINT
"Where your dream house comes true, don't let cheap paint make it a nightmare!"
You want to hear my nightmare? How about spending nearly a year stripping lead paint in my dream home, wearing a gas mask and gloves and keeping the bedroom in lockdown so that toxic dust and muck doesn't spread everywhere?

BAYER HEROIN

Not only did Bayer once own the trademark on Heroin, it promoted it to doctors as a non-addictive substitute for morphine. For a while, doctors took the bait. "It possesses many advantages over morphine," wrote the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1900. "It's not hypnotic, and there's no danger of acquiring a habit." The American Medical Association approved the use of heroin in 1906, but by then the "junkies" foraging scrap metal to feed their habit were getting hard to avoid. Bayer stopped making heroin in 1913 when prohibition seemed inevitable, and its use without a prescription was banned in the US the following year.

How Aspirin Turned Hero [Sunday Times, September 13, 1998]

JAMES DEAN'S "SAFE DRIVING" PSA

When it first released Rebel Without A Cause, Warner Brothers was concerned that kids would ape James Dean's character and wind up driving off cliffs. (A problem, of course, because the kids' relatives would likely sue the company.) To distance themselves from copycat incidents preemptively, Warner Brothers had Dean film this public service announcement urging kids to "Take it easy driving out there. The life you save might be mine." Alas, the clip was never used because Mr. Dean was killed in his speeding Porsche shortly before the movie was released.

As predicted, a number of teens copied Dean's "chicken" game and died while racing over cliffs. (Boston Globe, October 20, 1993)

THE FORD PINTO
"The little carefree car"

Carefree? Hardly. Ford's Pinto was designed in such a way that rear-end collisions could cause the car to catch fire and blow up. An internal memo revealed that Ford execs were well aware of the problem, but determined not to fix it. Why? Ford's cost-benefit analysis showed that paying off potential law suits from deaths was cheaper than a redesign. Another one of the TIME's 50 Worst Cars.

CAMELS
"More doctors smoke Camels..."

Ironic old cigarette ads are a dime a dozen but we figured we should include at least one, if for no reason than to call this post an even 10.

That's all. Thanks.

Carrie McLaren & Jason Torchinsky are coeditors of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. In previous lives, they worked together on the hopelessly obscure and now defunct Stay Free! magazine .