Marketing Roadmaps

Ethics

Lessons to be learned from ConAgra/Ketchum’s Sotto Terra blogger event

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I’m back! You had to know I would not be able to resist commenting on the ConAgra/Ketchum “Sotto Terra” blogger events in New York last month that went so horribly, tragically wrong. So wrong that the fallout made it to the pages of the New York Times. Ouch.

I’m not going to rehash the details here, because this post is not about piling it on. The company, brand and agency have been thoroughly schooled in the blogosphere already. Instead, I am going to focus on a few lessons that have nothing to do with the specific brand, that anyone involved in blogger outreach can learn from.

However, this post will make more sense if you know the basics about the ConAgra program. Short version: blogger event in New York. Promoted as an exclusive opportunity to experience a chef-prepared meal. On the day, entree and dessert revealed to be frozen meals. Ooops.

For more details,  please take a moment to read the NYT article and the links below to read the blog fallout after the event.

Lesson Number 1: Don’t fall so in love with your great, clever idea that you can’t see its flaws. Every idea has flaws; every message, detractors. You have got to be willing to be your own devil’s advocate. Ask yourself — what can go wrong? Where can this idea fail? Who might not like our idea and why?  I’m not saying be Debbie Downer on your own creativity. I am however advising you to think it through. Understand that there will ALWAYS be someone who doesn’t like your concept. The question is, are they outliers or your target? If your target audience ain’t gonna like it, don’t do it. That’s what happened with MotrinMoms a few years ago, and it’s clearly part of what happened here.

Poke holes in your own idea. Better you than a bunch of bloggers and the New York Times.

Lesson Number 2: People don’t like surprises. Especially when they make them feel foolish. Think about it. If you are old enough to remember Candid Camera, you’ll know what I mean. The audience of the stunts enjoyed them. The victim, not so much.

More proof? Ever read the back page of a book before deciding whether to invest the time? Ever visit a spoiler site for your favorite TV show for a sneak peek at what’s coming? Ever shake your holiday or birthday presents? Or try to sneak a corner of the tape off and then rewrap it? Yes, brother dear, I am talking to you. Or ransack your mom’s gift closet to see if there’s anything new there? My son did this.

People want to know what to expect. We like to be prepared. In fact, recent research from UC  San Diego suggests that knowing the ending of a book increases our enjoyment.

And we don’t like to be embarrassed.  It is really bad form to embarrass your customers.

Remember this when planning your blogger programs. Building around a big “reveal” is a dicey proposition, and if the reveal might disappoint instead of enchant? Seriously. Go back to the drawing board. Create something that will appeal to your target audience without deception. It may not be as alluring or sexy, but it’s far less likely to backfire. The Sotto Terra backlash was not “bloggers gone wild” by any means. It was people feeling betrayed and deceived. Not a good way to build a relationship.

Lesson Number 3: Disclosure. Do not do programs without disclosing your brand’s participation. EVER! Strictly speaking, I don’t think the Sotto Terra event violates the FTC disclosure guidelines, as full disclosure of the brand’s involvement was provided when the exchange of value (the meal) happened. However, I am not crazy about the ethics here. Bloggers were encouraged to promote an event as a prize, apparently without full information about the sponsor of the event. Could the bloggers have done a little research and learned that the two hosts were ConAgra consultants? Sure. But they shouldn’t have to. That’s your job as the sponsor.

What did you take away from the Sotto Terra story? Please stay away from brand-bashing. I want to focus on what brands, and bloggers, can do better to ensure mutually beneficial outcomes, not on pointing fingers or trashing the participants in this tale.

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FTC Update: Reverb, Green and Behavioral Targeting

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The Apex Building, headquarters of the Federal...
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I haven’t written about the FTC endorsement guidelines in quite a while but some things have crossed the transom over the past month that I wanted to share with you.

First, the FTC announced the resolution of its first completed investigation in which the social media aspects of the guidelines applied – Reverb.

Short story: Reverb was accused of “astroturfing” — employees of the PR firm left glowing comments on video game message boards as though they were satisfied customers of products. No fines were assessed, but the consent decree imposes some pretty stringent requirements on the firm and its principal. Read the consent decree for the details.

Two important things about Reverb:

  • The deceptive advertising laws existed – and applied to online and social media – well before the revised guidelines were issued last year. Deceptive advertising is deceptive advertising, full stop. The revised guidelines help us – advertisers and consumers – understand how the FTC intends to enforce the law. The guidelines were and are not targeted specifically at blogs.
  • The FTC focused on the company and its principal, not the individuals hired to leave the comments. It was the agency providing the direction that was held accountable for the deception. This is consistent with the agency’s statements that it intends to focus on advertisers, not on individual bloggers participating in social media campaigns.

In other FTC news: the agency is going to turn its attention to Green claims. Not surprising given the greenwashing of the past few years. According to Ad Age:

“The guides are expected to tighten standards for packaging claims such as “recyclable” or “biodegradable”; regulate how marketers use such terms as “carbon neutral”; and how quickly and close to the source of carbon output “carbon offsets” must be executed, among other things.”

Another term expected to come in for scrutiny is “sustainability.”

This reminds me of the organic/natural debate. Organic is specific. Products need to comply with very specific requirements to be labeled organic. Natural on the other hand has relatively little meaning, and certainly doesn’t mean something is “good for you.” There are many things in nature that are most definitely not good for humans to breathe or consume. Carbon monoxide. Tobacco. Poison.  You get the idea.

And on Monday, I read an item in Ad Week about the major US advertising associations collaborating on a mechanism for consumers to opt-out of online ads that use behavioral targeting. A move designed to forestall formal FTC action on the issue.

According to Ad Week

“Ads targeted using past Internet browsing history will carry the small logo. Clicking it will bring notice of the targeting used and direct people to a page with options for blocking behavioral targeting.”

Behavioral targeting increases the relevance of the ads to a viewer’s interests, and in that respect, benefits both marketers and consumers. On the other hand, there are legitimate privacy concerns. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  What do you think?

Update 8 October: The FTC released the proposed new green guidelines on the 6th. The public comment period ends December 10th. The agency also forestalled the game of  “social media telephone” like the one that occurred last year about the endorsement guidelines (there was more misinformation and disinformation circulating at one point than actual information) by releasing a nice summary PDF of the proposed changes.

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Travel blogs, ethics and the FTC endorsement guidelines

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IMG_8919This past weekend, I was in New York for the Travel Blog Exchange conference (TBEX). The primary reason I attended the conference was to represent Blog With Integrity on a panel about blogging ethics, but I also got some great tips and ideas for my somewhat neglected travel blog, Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip.

This year, I’ve spoken at a number of conferences about integrity, disclosure and the FTC endorsement guidelines. In most cases, the audience doesn’t know very much about the guidelines beyond whatever version of the urban myths are circulating within the community. This is of course why the conference organizers invite Blog With Integrity and usually someone from the FTC and/or a lawyer.

The travel community  was grappling with the ethical issue of sponsored trips  well before the guidelines were revised last year. Travel bloggers are very passionate about ethics and receptive to the approach of best practices — disclosure policies that go beyond what the FTC minimally requires. In fact, many travel blogs already have published policies.

During the Q&A on Sunday, it was clear that the attendees wanted to comply with the FTC requirements,  but they were struggling a bit with exactly what had to be disclosed and how.

And then I had an “Aha” moment. Hard to believe that after all I have written about this topic for more than a year, there would be something I hadn’t thought of, but lo and behold, there was.

I broke it down to a simple equation for disclosure, which seemed to clear things up for a lot of the bloggers at TBEX.

Endorsement + Compensation = Disclosure Required

How to disclose

The best way to disclose to meet the FTC guidelines is within the post that contains the endorsement: “I was privileged to be hosted by…” “I was thrilled at the opportunity to take a trip to (place) courtesy of (sponsor).” And so on. It is not sufficient to disclose in your disclosure policy or About page.

However, I recommend that you also have  a disclosure & editorial policy on your page:

  • to let your readers know what they can expect on your blog, especially casual readers or folks that find you through a search engine, and
  • to inform marketers and PR people about your interests so they contact you with relevant, appropriate offers.

Relationships and SWAG

Another key point Mary Engle from the FTC and I both stressed on Sunday was the relationship between the marketer and the blogger. If the marketer is reaching out to specific bloggers with sponsored trips and free products, there is a compensated relationship that must be disclosed. If 300 bloggers all get identical SWAG (stuff we all get) at a conference, the reason they received it was as a member of a group, not as an individual. There is no relationship between the marketer and a blogger who got the SWAG. This is still true if distribution of the SWAG is managed using a list of bloggers at the conference entitled to receive it. A list doesn’t create a relationship. Communication between people creates a relationship.

That said, of course, you know my mantra — disclose anyway. The company that provided an item relevant enough that you decide to write about it deserves the props for supporting the conference SWAG bag.

Bloggers, journalists

A touchy subject was the idea that travel bloggers are being held to a higher standard than travel writers for mainstream media who don’t have to disclose. I’ve written about why the FTC doesn’t require disclosure from mainstream journalists many times, and won’t rehash it all again. The brief version is that it’s about the consumer reading the item, not the person writing it. If the consumer would understand that the endorsement was compensated  — in the case of a journalist, by his salary and probably the subsidy of his paper for the trip,  no further disclosure is required.

The predominant sentiment at the conference was that mainstream journalists should be required to disclose as well. I agree. Disclosure is a best practice, full stop, regardless of your publishing channel.

However, I reject the opposite argument, which wasn’t offered by the TBEX audience, but I’ve read elsewhere — if mainstream journalists don’t have to do it, why should bloggers? That’s grabbing the stick from the very wrong end.

I also think it’s counter-productive to worry too much about others. Focus on what you need to do to connect with your readers, provide them good information and entertaining writing, and be honest about any business relationships you have. Compensation or free product may not change your opinion or writing one little bit, but you have to let the reader make that call for herself. You shouldn’t attempt to do it for her.

Twitter?

How to disclose on Twitter always comes up during ethics panels, and Sunday was no exception. It’s also a bit more complex for travel writers taking sponsored trips, as opposed to someone reviewing a single product. A trip occurs over a period of time, and there are only 140 characters. If part of every tweet has to have a disclosure, the tweetstream would get pretty dull.

Mary Engle made an important clarification for us. You have to disclose that the trip was compensated or the product was free in tweets containing the endorsement of the sponsor/advertiser. When you are tweeting about something unrelated to the sponsor — for example,  your experience at a local museum or farmers’ market, there’s no need to disclose because you are not endorsing the sponsor.

Here’s my advice.

  • Start your trip with a tweet acknowledging the sponsor (and linking to a post on your blog with more details if you have one)
  • Be sure to disclose in some fashion in any tweets endorsing the sponsor: “I love my room at the Aruba Marriott #sponsor” “The beach at host hotel Swanky Resort is pristine.”
  • If the trip spans multiple days, make sure you have at least one tweet per day that discloses that your trip is sponsored and by whom. The easiest way to do this is to spread out your endorsements of the sponsor 🙂
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Thoughts on the FTC investigation of Ann Taylor LOFT blogger event

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So many things queued up to write about, including last week’s New Comm Forum, a slew of bad pitches that folks have forwarded over the past few months (Douches, Snakes and Brand Ambassadors) and a great visit to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute yesterday to learn more about the Jimmy Fund.

But the FTC went public this week with the results of its first investigation under the new endorsements and testimonials guidelines, and that news trumps the other (more evergreen) topics.

As reported in Ad Age, the FTC investigated an event held by Ann Taylor LOFT in January to launch its summer collection. The company invited bloggers to attend a special preview of the collection; those that posted about the event within 24 hours were entered into “mystery gift-card drawing” with a value between $50 and $500. (More about the event on Jezebel: February 3, April 28)

Reported Ad Age:

The event and the unusual request for posts to be submitted for a prize received media scrutiny and caught the eye of the FTC. “We were concerned that bloggers who attended a preview on January 26, 2010 failed to disclose that they received gifts for posting blog content about that event,” Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director-advertising practices, wrote in a letter dated April 20 to Ann Taylor’s legal representation.

According to the article, the FTC decided not to take further action because it was a single event, only a small number of bloggers participated (and some disclosed) and Ann Taylor subsequently adopted a written policy for blogger outreach.

This is exactly what the FTC said it planned to do all along. Its focus would be on advertisers, not individual bloggers, and the initial investigations would likely result in warnings, not indictments.

Taking the step of pursuing an action in the courts is a long expensive process. The harm to the public has to be pretty significant to merit the cost, especially if satisfaction can be obtained more efficiently, as it was here.  I suspect an uncooperative Ann Taylor might have resulted in a different outcome.

What can we learn from this?

The guidelines are intended to prevent deceptive advertising practices. The media may love the (erroneous) idea that the FTC is “cracking down on bloggers,” as Ad Age repeated again in this week’s article, but reality is, the larger burden is on the companies, not the individuals.  The FTC expects the company — the advertiser — to provide guidance to its WOM agents about the requirements. In the Ann Taylor case, there wasn’t much guidance.

While it isn’t covered in the Ad Age article, there was also an element of confusion in the event that probably concerned the FTC. This is entirely speculation on my part, but it’s a fairly informed one.

Basically, if you write about a company or product and subsequently get a gift, you aren’t required to disclose the gift. Unless of course you write about the company again. Further, if you win a sweepstakes or get a product in a swag bag, you don’t really have a material relationship with the advertiser. Your receipt of the product is random. Best practices may dictate disclosure but the endorsement guidelines do not.

Here we have a gift contigent upon a post. That’s compensation, albeit a little ugly. Not a gift. Disclosure required. But confusing.

This is compounded by the contest-like element of the mystery gift card drawing, which makes it look a bit like a sweepstakes. Except not really. Everyone who wrote a post got a gift card, and you had to get the initial invitiation to participate.  Relationship and compensation. Disclosure definitely required.

Bottom line, just a messy confusing campaign all around. Confusion for bloggers about whether they need to disclose, and little guidance from the company on the requirement. Confusion for consumers, because they don’t have the information they need to evaluate the blog posts.

The lesson for companies: Keep blogger outreach programs simple and easy to understand. Provide guidance and training to your word-of-mouth agents. And your employees, especially the ones charged with developing and executing social media programs.

The lesson for bloggers: Think twice about working with companies that don’t inform you that you need to disclose. Push back if you aren’t getting the information or support you need. Also, unrelated to this case specifically, but general advice: read agreements carefully. While I do not think companies can push their liability onto you, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some tried. That’s just a mess you don’t want to get into.

What I highly advise you to NOT take away from the Ad Age article

A lawyer interviewed in the Ad Age article speculated:

“They’re [the FTC] probably throwing a little fire-starter into it, sending some messages out. The message this time is somewhere between $50 and $500 requires a disclosure.”

My head about to explode. I can just see this quote spawning a new urban legend that there is a minimum and maximum value that the FTC will look at, vis disclosure and enforcement. No no no no no. Compensation is compensation. $5 or $5000. Products or cash.

When in doubt, disclose. There’s never too much information when it comes to informing the consumer. You know. Us.