Agressive Advertising Is Like a Used Car Salesman

Rachel Sharkey

rs783310@ohio.edu

Aggressive advertising is like the obnoxious used car salesman. It is in-your-face, absurd and leaves the smell of stale cologne lingering in the air. Okay, so maybe the last one is a stretch, but with advertisements now taking the road toward “sponsored content,” advertising seems to be in sync with our everyday media consumption.

Photo Credit: CurbsideClassic.com

Mike Orren, a former news publisher who is now president of Speakeasy, was quoted in an article by Poynter describing content marketing “to newbies" as  "advertorial without all the ‘me, me, me.’"  

But the issue with this new trend in advertising is the level of transparency used by companies taking advantage of sponsored content. Although it is (hopefully) universally accepted that the content should be labeled as sponsored to inform the audience, it leaves a lot to the imagination of the readers. Should we publish the extent to which the company advertising had their hands in the content? In the article referencing Mike Orren by Poynter, the author poses whether the following questions should be published:

“Did the sponsors write it themselves? Did you write it, but they reviewed it before publishing? Or did they have no control and just want to associate their brand with the content?”

I think that it is absolutely necessary to inform the public of the motives behind the content we serve them. It is rare to find a code of ethics in the journalism and media world that lacks a statement referencing our duty to inform the public to the best of our knowledge. We would be doing a disservice to ourselves and our audience if we did not reveal the reasons behind publishing the content we publish.

Photo Credit: PaidContent.org 

Ann Willets of PRSA posted an article titled "The ethics of branded content," where she references Edelman’s guidelines concerning branded content behavior. The second guideline asks publishers to “Allow for real reader comments, like those found on news and opinion pieces. Don’t edit or remove the negative ones only because someone bought and paid for the content.”

Allowing reader comments provides an even playing field for audience perception. However I do not think it is enough.

 Imagine you are reading an article in your local newspaper. You think you’re reading a witty article on the benefits of watching reality television, and you decide to re-post it on your Facebook. You later find it was supported and written by MTV. Would you be bothered at the fact you promoted a network unintentionally? If you knew it was supported by MTV, would that be enough? Or would you feel better knowing they wrote the article themselves before you published it? These questions seem silly, but when they could cost a company its reputation, the impact of their answers can speak volumes.