Should The P&G Moms Disclose They're "On The Take"?
The P&G Moms blog has caused a stir in the marketing world by failing to disclose they're a "credible" outlet that's been paid to promote the company. The problem is, they're not alone.
It turns out that most bloggers are paid to promote products and services, but some don't disclose it. And those posts invariably go unchecked on Google, Yahoo!, Bing and every other search engine you can think of.
Bloggers are increasingly being asked to provide disclosures on their blogs — but what they're disclosing isn't nearly enough. They need to be clear about how any affiliate links work or how much commission they get for driving traffic to an advertiser's site for example. And bloggers need to disclose more about what is behind the "sponsored" comments on their sites.
So, let's all do a better job of disclosing what we're being paid and promoted on. We can start by sharing a screenshot of our disclosures and asking others to do the same.
At Old Dog Marketing we consider ourselves advocates for transparency and ethics in marketing. We have always been upfront about promotional posts and the amount of money we make from promoting others' products or services.
Back in 2011 we were the very first in our market to post a full disclosure at the top of this blog. It's actually been copied into several other blogs, including the P&G Moms Blog and I'm sure a lot more others.
Here is that disclosure:
Old Dog Marketing Disclosure Guidelines:
This blog accepts paid advertising from third party companies and firms. We also accept promotional posts from clients, PR firms and media outlets. Old Dog Marketing does not accept payment from these companies as a condition of posting their news or content on this site, nor do we allow them to influence what we write about them or about their competitors. This blog posts information from sources it considers reliable. If you want to know what we consider an "unreliable source", please read our Disclaimer at the bottom of the page. This blog also sometimes uses affiliate links for products or services we think are useful but we do not accept payments or other consideration from companies in exchange for positive reviews on the website. This blog does not regularly receive free products, and when it does it will disclose that fact. Advertising on this blog does not affect editorial decisions made by Old Dog Marketing or its staff. The opinions expressed here are the author's alone and do not reflect the opinions of this blog, its owners, affiliates, advertisers or sponsors. Old Dog Marketing accepts no liability for errors, omissions and opinions expressed on this blog. The author reserves the right to disclose his/her personal financial interest in any company mentioned by name in an editorial/commentary piece. Old Dog Marketing also reserves the right to delete comments if they are deemed inappropriate or offensive. The author, Old Dog Marketing, assumes no liability for opinions expressed by commenters. The opinions expressed in comments by commenters do not reflect the opinions of Old Dog Marketing and are solely the opinion of the individual commenter. Comments may not reflect current or past positions and are not verified for accuracy by this blog. If you believe a comment is libelous, please contact us and we will remove it as soon as possible. Please note all posts may be reviewed and edited at our discretion prior to posting on the blog. Listing is not an endorsement of any product, service or company. Thanks for your cooperation.
Old Dog Marketing Disclosure Guidelines has been copied into several other blogs including the P&G Moms Blog and I'm sure many more!!!
Here are a couple of screen shots from the P&G Moms blog:
They have a disclosure statement at the bottom of their pages, but it's so small that most people don't even see it.
It's not just big name brands. Don't be fooled by the fact that a PR firm is promoting their product. These are some of the most respected brands in the world and they're all being promoted.
Here's another example:
While we're on the topic of disclosure, here's another post by a blogger who has failed to disclose at least a few sponsorship links:
Again.. this blog has no affiliation with this company whatsoever. They simply wrote about it and we did our best to warn people about the nature of this promotion. Here's the thing. These people are not paid to write about this company, but if you read their blog you'd never know that.
What did we do? We decided to try and make a difference by admitting on our blog that we're being paid and by disclosing how much we make from companies in exchange for what they want us to write about them.
Three years later, when disclosure is now the norm across the entire industry, the P&G Moms Blog still has yet to come clean. It's almost as if they're hiding something...
So for all your doubts about the authenticity of this article, please contact us and we'll be happy to show you that each one is completely legit and real.
And for a bit "proof" as to who is behind both the MomsBizMoms blog and this one:
The bloggers behind both of these sites are Wayne Cascio and Alicia Silverstone. They're both part of a group called MOMs Who Blog that has been trying to make a difference in our industry, calling out bloggers who fail to disclose.
MOMs Who Blog also runs an event called The Social Sponsorships Summit, where they have gathered all the sponsors on one massive stage and have asked them questions about what they do, how it works and things like what surprised them (hint-hint...it had nothing to do with disclosure).
The Summit is still going on this weekend, in fact the MOMs Who Blog site is down now because they're getting thousands of people trying to register and watch.
I'm not sure I'd call an event where you get sponsors together to ask them questions about what they do and it ends up online as a "massive failure"... but that's just me.
Did you know these bloggers don't just post about brands, they also promote them? Here are a few examples:
So if this is all true, why don't they disclose it? Why would they be hiding things? I think it's because of what happened with the past two times when disclosure was brought up:
Disclosure time...
Conclusion
There are many bloggers out there who do not disclose their relationships with companies they write about. The P&G Moms Blog is the most well known, but we found posts by other bloggers that have failed to disclose as well. While this may seem like nothing to some people, we believe it is a huge problem that needs to get solved.
We're going to ask the Moms Who Blog and Wayne Cascio himself (they've been very reluctant at best) whether they plan on writing about these issues any more so.......we'll keep you posted. Until then, if you want to know who's behind Old Dog Marketing and how we got started in the first place, scroll down for our "About Us" page.