E-Commerce Week #7

Business Week Online

A Modest Blogging Proposal

Ben Kunz

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081229_038849.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_internet

This article is about how a blogger, Chris Brogan, received $500 from Kmart to visit the store and find out what’s “cool” there and then write about it. An analyst from Forrester Research heard of this and posted a question on Twitter as to whether it’s okay for brands to approach their bloggers in this tactic. The result was one of the biggest debates in recent blogosphere history as both when were widely known and followed for their blogs. Thousands responded and the general consensus by the end of the weekend was that most people didn’t seem to see a problem with a person being paid for their efforts.

The follow-up of this discussion led to a proposal for people to get paid for dropping brand names into their blogging conversations.  Because of the decrease in the effect of traditional media, these people believe that they could be paid for real-world opinions by inserting brand promotion directly into their blog post. They would be called “advertorials” and the only rule would be that while they intend to look like a real opinion, they must be clearly marked as sponsored ads.

An original PayPerPost.com site was created for this type of idea, but eventually failed, and now Brogan is looking to start the same type of scenario up again. Realizing that the challenge of advertising is real, and that marketers must try new ways of reaching out to consumers. The problem that’s been run into is that, if companies are going to pay individuals for these blog posts, how is it a guarantee that these posts are really the opinions of the people and not what the company wants them to say. According to Brogan, “There is an ethical line between buying ad position and buying an ad opinion, but honestly we don’t know where that line is.”

Basically, sponsoring real-world opinions could open up many doors for advertisers to influence consumers, and consumers could get cash in the process. If monetizing chatting could lift the world out of this recession, then this method should start to be considered by companies. I learned that the world of advertising is struggling in certain areas, and as someone going into advertising design, many ways of reaching out need to be discovered, because the old way just isn’t working as well anymore.