- Disclosure. I see that you elaborate on some possible consultancies: what would be helpful I think is to know who your clients are and what kind of work you've done for them. I'm guessing that often this will be covered by NDAs - where this is the case, do you think there's any scope to influence brands to allow a little more openness in the interests of building trust for your audiences? I am pretty sure that Superdrug won’t mind if I say one consultancy session I did with them was identifying who the B woman is. When you build a brand I think it helps to have a ‘face’ in your head so that you can start to feel the human aspect of the brand and so it doesn’t just become more bottles of stuff. So we talked about where they thought ‘B’ might go on holiday, what does she drink, what does she eat, where does she shop – that kind of thing to build a human around the range. I did a session with the Estee Lauder group about speaking to older women – about not focussing so hard on looking younger and being more pro-ageing. Smaller brands and PR agencies tend to ask me how to work well with bloggers – my answer is (mostly) to find the right blogger for your brand and establish a relationship that you can both work with in the right way. Now that agencies exist however, bigger brands just hand the entire relationship over to the agency so consultancies are less.
- Negative reviews: what's your take on this? Do you agree with other bloggers who've suggested the best approach is to 'just not give them page space'? Or do you share your thoughts on products you're not so happy with? I do negative reviews – I’m perfectly happy to do it if I think a product falls short of expectation. Usually though I try to take into account any redeeming features (maybe it’s just not for my age range or might suit other skin types or tones) but if there are none, so be it. I will say so.
- How could consumers encourage bloggers and brands to be more rigorous about disclosure and ethics? Your efforts to date seem to suggest that the ASA aren't particularly interested, so maybe this is something that needs to come from the bottom up. If so, what could we be doing differently in order to make this change more likely? This is such a good question. I think it is by being discerning – all blogs are built by their readers and less readers can often be a good guide to the author that their content needs looking at. Basically, vote with your feet.
3. What's your take on when the need for disclosure runs out? For myself, I would love it if when a brand, retailer, company, whatever, is mentioned on a blog, there was a link or hover box outlining any commercial relationships that the blogger has had with that brand/retailer/company, and when that relationship was. Maybe running out after five years or something.
At my level of blogging, I’ve never come across disclosure running out. It doesn’t run out as far as I know – if you’ve disclosed, you’ve disclosed. If you follow a particular blog regularly then you’ll probably be aware of past commercial activity, but I can see for new viewers or chance viewers it may not be as clear.
4.
Agents (spotted this in another comment). Currently I do have an agent who I have never used for anything! Ever. Prior to that I have had one independent agent for about 18 months.. I can handle any ‘negotiations’ myself, but if you have an agent, they can act as an intermediary if there are any problems. That has yet to happen.
5.
Sponsored Posts: For me usually what happens is a brand asks my fee, I tell them, and they either pay it or don’t pay it. The only other way it works for me is a brand might say this is what we have, what can do? If it’s not something I can do anything with, it doesn’t go any further. I try and stick to sponsored posts that are information driven (such as my recent Treatwell sponsored post – the brand want to spread the word that they are no longer Wahanda and I have the right audience for that; I downloaded the app, checked the booking facilities, consumer reviews and everything else I could think of) OR are products that I genuinely like OR are new discoveries that I think are worth sharing (or a mix of both like my recent Fresh sponsored post). Recent turndowns include a supplement (and I LOVE a supplement) that I felt was far too expensive for consumers to buy and there was the equivalent already out there for a great deal less (that would be a proper disservice to BBB readers) and a jewellery brand that asked me to talk about love and tie it into jewellery
shudders. When I take a sponsored post, I usually boost it on Facebook (at my expense) for a couple of days.
6.
Gifts: It’s part of PR outreach to often send flowers or similar (dressing gowns.. so many dressing gowns) to accompany a product. It is rare for an individual to receive ‘presents’ as such that are not received by everyone else. I’m looking at a rucksack and beach towel now (so many beach towels) and have no intention of covering the product. Towels and dressing gowns are no incentive to favour a brand or a product. I rarely post about or even declare these because they really aren’t any incentive – I might use them to illustrate a post (I have an inflatable pink flamingo waiting to do exactly that). This also applies to journalists. I was recently gifted a pair of boots (never before nor since) and thanked the brand publicly on Instagram. It was a genuine gift for writing I’d done for them for nothing, not a brand promo or a bribe. The writing was already done well before the boots arrived.
7.
Trips: I have only ever been on one trip as a blogger that I’d call a ‘jolly’ although as a journalist I was offered plenty. You’re expected to work hard if a brand has paid money for you to be there and be available at all times. Just because it’s happening in Rome or Paris doesn’t mean it’s not work. I go on very few trips because it’s generally a brand immersion that doesn’t leave you many options when it comes to posting. I also don’t feel comfortable about looking ‘showy’.
8. Botempt I was quite amazed to read in your comment that the ASA does not see the necessity of disclosing that money has changed hands if there is no creative input (I'm assuming this means a detailed brief with points that must be mentioned in order to receive payment) by the brand/agency.
I know.. me too. I don’t know what to say to you about this other than those are the facts as they stand. And yes, you’d need some kind of documentary evidence. You also maybe need to look with a side-eye at the brands who quite happily go ahead with paid for posts knowing that it won’t be openly declared.
- I'm also curious about the roles of agents, you've mentioned that you've had an agent in the past who was by your description more of a business facilitator who mainly acted if there were financial/contractual disputes on your behalf. Agencies like Gleam appear to be facilitating far more than this, functioning like a hybrid of PR and talent management, earning their keep from both parties by designing strategies and campaigns that incentivise sales across several platforms where we see the same product over and over again (please correct me if this is an inaccurate assessment). What has their influence been on how the blogging industry functions and operates now? Are they actively educating bloggers on how to handle ASA guidelines and possibly how to circumvent them? Is the lack of disclosure and transparency something that is preferred by brands or the agencies, or is it a combination of both? : I believe that some agencies are more reliable than others and do actively educate on the subject. Their influence is huge but it’s not in fact, the bigger agencies, it’s the smaller ‘social media agencies’ that tend to disregard rules. It’s not in the interest of any large agency to have a roster of bloggers/vloggers that flout the rules but with the hundreds of smaller agencies – their practices are questionable on occasion. The larger agencies have more of a financial influence on the blogging ‘market’ which in fact works in the favour of those not with an agency because fee expectation is higher across the board. The downside for us is that agency bloggers often only promote from within which makes commercial sense but it has meant a loss of the sense of community in the blogosphere and put a competitive bar in place that didn’t exist prior to agencies. It’s often those not affiliated with an agency and don’t have anyone overseeing they adhere that are the ones not complying. Questionable posts are also present on Instagram where certain brands, bloggers and journalists in every genre you care to mention buy followers and likes. And thank you for the suggestion re SH ITB.
9.
Re Iamnina: One of my concerns with this poster is that she said she was able to tell at a glance (I think) what was an undeclared post and cited my site as a place that she was able to see them. That’s entirely untrue. She is correct that bloggers are watched like hawks by agencies, brands and stats aggregators and that threads like this one play a part in them being able to understand the mood of the moment, but I have genuinely never heard of a MN thread being an activity game changer for any brand at all. What brands generally want, is a large, provable number of views on any activity they’re producing. When you get to the really big brands, numbers are all that it’s about – relevant audience? Don’t care. It’s why you can often see unsuitable products sent to big numbers bloggers (such as anti-ageing to a 20 year old) Provable stats is what impresses the budget holders. Agencies provide an intermediary role in this but it’s my understanding that it falls to the blogger in the end to decide what is the right product to take or the right brand to work with. It’s usual for brands to decide who to work with on a) numbers (real or imagined, b) prettiness (real or filtered), c) age (real or pretend), d) authority (real or pretend) so you have to again look at the marketing plans of beauty brands to see why who gets what and maybe that helps you to partially see how we are where we are.
10.
Everyone sent the same products: Nobody likes this any more than you do – PR and marketing now consider bloggers part of their ‘strategy’. Usually, long lead press gets the products first, short lead second and bloggers third and we have little or no control over that. Personally, I fight against being expected to be part of a crowd (why I feature Korean brands or US brands quite often) and will ask to get something different from the range or ahead of time – anything really to make it a little bit different. But, we are ‘expected’ by brands to join the masses and to adhere to their time structure. Sometimes I do, if it’s a brand that I know my readers love, and sometimes I don’t join in at all. Not every reader reads other blogs so I can’t obliterate all of it otherwise I’d have an empty site and be short changing those who want to keep up with beauty news from one source. As it is, there are glaring holes in my roster of brands that I talk about and after being told by one brand; ‘you don’t get to choose what you write about, you write about what we send you’ I did indeed exercise my choice and never worked with them again. We are also under pressure from brands to ‘prove we can sell’ (not to mention the affiliate agencies who send daily emails urging us to promote brands) and again, those brands who have said that to me directly have been removed from the roster. I don’t know what more I can do. Any advertising on my site is sourced directly by me – I don’t have an agency supplying my ads but I do work on an affiliate basis where relevant.
11.
Finally.. and hoping I haven’t just posted the longest comment in MN history, some of you will know that for the past few years I have produced beauty boxes with Latest In Beauty and this is a commercial activity although I feel that they are exceptionally fairly priced for the contents. I also had a make up range two years ago with Marks & Spencer, again commercial, and I have a palette coming up with another brand in which I will take a profit share. There is no secret to any of this but please don’t imagine I’m buying a Rolls Royce with the profits! The brands you see in the boxes are brands that I am genuinely proud to work with and in most cases have worked with them for years and years, both as a journalist (20 years) and a blogger (8 years). I have paid for work coming up with House of Fraser, Olay and Clinique amongst others, just so there are no surprises. My blog will always have a clearly marked commercial aspect. I am proud of what I do and the way in which I do it. Thank you for your direct questions and the opportunity to address them - I hope you feel in some way clearer.
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I mean Jessie you could be a trucker called Roy for all I know taking a break on the M6.