2009 September, 23rd

Mihaela Lica

In recent articles we discussed some dubious aspects apparent in blogs authored by mothers. We never said that all mommy bloggers have questionable content, what we did say however is that some of them make mistakes that could potentially damage their online presence, reputation and might have legal consequences in the end. It’s very sad that some of these ladies mis-perceived our intent, so I will attempt today to clarify a few aspects of the discussion and to reveal another unfortunate state of affairs of PR business vis-à-vis mommy bloggers.

What Some Mommy Bloggers Do Wrong

• Undisclosed positive paid reviews

  Earlier this year the media reported that the FTC is planning to hold marketers liable for statements published on blogs and social media sites. This means, for example, that publishers and bloggers who, when reviewing a product, make false statements, could get sued.

  The ladies mentioned in this editorial never disclosed that they received $15 gift cards to buy hot dogs for Memorial Day from Oscar Meyer – they just made some raving reviews of an otherwise unhealthy product.

  Fact: mommy bloggers are often paid or given freebies in exchange for product reviews. Some of these reviews are not disclosed as “paid for” and are usually positive. A positive review about a bad product could eventually result in the consequences mentioned above.

• Undisclosed sponsored links

  It’s no secret that Google penalizes paid links – undisclosed editorial links to a sponsor or an affiliate are, de facto, paid links as well.

  In the case of Cool Mom Pics these links are carefully disguised in editorial content, and in the absence of a “nofollow” attribute they pass as natural contextual links. The little mashup below shows exactly how these links appear on the site:

  

  The post in the image , titled “School uniform help? – Reader Q&A” responds to reader questions about school apparel – everything fine so far.

  According to Liz Gumbinner of CMP, the site often reviews “a product editorially, and when the response is excellent, the brand inquires about advertising.” I think the strategy is at least brilliant, although what puzzles me is that all the reviews on CMP have to be positive… So, assuming that the team from CMP followed the pattern suggested by Liz, the Polarn O. Pyret review from April 14 this year was not paid for (despite appearances). Continuing with the scenario, Polarn O. Pyret was so happy with the review that they later became sponsors of CMP – in the image above note the Polarn O. Pyret banner on the right. So far everything fine. The problem however is that in the School uniform help? – Reader Q&A blog entry, Polarn O. Pyret is not mentioned as a sponsor, but as a “CMP fave.” Two editorial links are thus given to a sponsor, without disclosure.

  Fact: such links could lead to Google penalties. According to Googles’s own policies, advertising links should be designated as such. Google recommends two ways to disclose these links:

  • Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
  • Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

  From a reader’s perspective, I would also like to know when a publisher intentionally recommends a product from one of its sponsors.

What Some PRs Do Wrong

Stephanie Azzarone, president of Child’s Play Communications, a PR company that helps companies market to moms, reacted vehemently to Phil Butler’s latest post about mommy bloggers. I applaud and welcome constructive debates, however, there was something in Stephanie’s response that puzzled me.

“We don’t pay the mommy bloggers we work with. We never have.”

For a minute there I thought that this lady and her fine organization mastered the secret art of getting people to review stuff out of the goodness of their hearts. I just couldn’t believe it, so I dug deeper. The answer came from Stephanie Azzarone herself, in an article discussing Why K’nex Brands loves mommy blogs on ComputerWorld:

“We have a program called Team Mom. It’s a network of mom bloggers who have agreed to write about our clients on a regular basis.”

Following the Team Mom link above, how Stephanie Azzarone is NOT paying mommy bloggers for reviews became very clear:

“Moms, when you join Team Mom, your only obligation will be to periodically receive free products – or visit links we will provide — test them out, then write a blog post about your experience within two weeks of receiving them. Any products are yours to keep.”

For everyone still confused: freebies are a form of payment. Stephanie Azzarone did not lie in her statement. Evidently Child’s Play Communications is not paying the mothers who join Team Mom – the companies interested in reviews are paying Child’s Play instead. Child’s Play is just the middle man, the company that gets paid good money to approach (pitch) these mothers and send them the freebies. While mothers are not financially compensated for these reviews, Child’s Play is. And, since the Team Mom club is already functioning, Child’s Play generates revenue for simply sending out some bulk emails to these mothers. The real work is done by the mommy bloggers who, because they don’t actually receive money, believe that they are out of danger. But, will this perceived level or protection stand scrutiny?

What Is Child’s Play Doing Wrong?

• The company doesn’t require the mommy bloggers who join Team Mom to write truthful reviews, even negative if necessary (see the mention in this article that all K’nex reviews run by Child’s Play were positive). Instead, the company suggests that products that conflict with the writer’s beliefs should not be reviewed at all: “Of course, if a product conflicts with your personal beliefs, you are in no way obligated to write about it.”
• The company doesn’t require mommy bloggers to disclose these reviews as sponsored either (for example, this review for K’nex through Child’s Play is undisclosed). Again, receiving and keeping a free sample to write a review is a form of payment.

These conditions should be there, on the landing page of the Team Mom club, to make it very clear for those who join that positive reviews are not mandatory. But then, would companies like K’nex still employ Child’s Play to spread its message? Are companies ready to deal with truthful reviews that describe a product with all its pros and cons? And how can a PR company like Child’s Play “sell” such an idea to a customer? Just some of the many questions we should be asking, because sooner or later many more will ask them.

What Did Pamil Visions PR Do Wrong

We criticized some mommy blogs without prior presentation of these problems. We do not work in the parenting PR industry, so obviously we are not experienced in dealing with these ladies (attested to by the fact that Phil Butler assumed all Moms are altruistic by nature). We did not expect them to react negatively, but to address the problems instead.

The Need of Industry Standards

If mothers who run reviews blogs are not ready and willing to accept criticism, companies that try to sell these products through their blogs will be even more resistant to negative reviews, for a while at least.That is, until solid, objective reviews are demanded by all businesses.

Clearly paid reviews are here to stay, but these should always be disclosed as transparently as possible, and if appropriate, they should contain both “pros” and “cons” of the reviewed product. Reviews are not advertisements, therefore they do not need to be positive and they should never read like advertisements either. A review is a critical appraisal of a product, and as such, it should reflect careful evaluation and judgment.

Hyperlinks to sponsors and affiliates, even editorial links, should always be disclosed as such. Banners are a clear form of advertising, whereas the purpose of links is different, and Google has strong policies about paid links and how websites should be linking out.

The need of industry standards is clear, and I think that the discussion we started by revealing some of the negative aspects we found on blogs run by/and addressed to moms should at lease inspire PRs working with these fine ladies to set these standards. Mommy bloggers feed the parenting PR industry – they should be protected and educated to uphold the highest standards possible. There is no need for further logic or conjecture on this point, the statement bears its own weight. PRs who employ them should educate them on the risks of writing sponsored reviews, admonish them to provide negative feedback as well as positive, and in general project the PR company’s values onto the conversation. They should encourage disclosure, transparency, truthfulness. Unless of course their business is not anything about that.

• 2010/06/03 -- Procter and Gamble and Weird Pampers Science
• 2010/05/30 -- Procter and Gamble’s Online Marriage, A Pitiful Engagement
• 2010/05/21 -- Dry Max PR Goofs: Pampers Attempts to Buy Trust
• 2010/05/04 -- It’s Time to Play Fair With Toy Safety In China
• 2010/02/19 -- A Government for Moms and Corporations
• 2009/12/08 -- The CPSC, Zhu Zhu Pets, and Your Child

About the Author

Mihaela Lica is senior partner at Pamil Visions PR and editor at Everything PR. She is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters and others), with an experience of over 8 years in online PR. Mihaela writes occasionally for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. Follow Mig on Twitter or send her an email at mig [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

See All Posts by This Author