There was a point in time where marketing by word of mouth and hearing testimonials from people you know, personally or other, was a highly trusted form of marketing/advertisement. If your close friend, or someone you had been following via social media for years endorsed a product and shared about how much they loved it, it felt authentic.
Somewhere along the way, lines started getting blurred, especially on apps like Instagram, and it became hard to tell what was genuine endorsement of a product versus a paid or sponsored advertisement. In more recent years, it has become a requirement to disclose advertisements with tags that say "paid partnership", "sponsored", or "#ad". Many people's social media feeds are inundated with these influencer advertisements.
PRSA and IAE have come up with ethics codes, IAE specifically for advertisement purposes. These guidelines are to help keep transparency and honesty between companies and the consumer, keeping ethical practices in mind at all times. But, is it really working? Not everyone possesses the critical thinking skills to know exactly how to spot these ads and what they could mean. They may believe fully that this influencer who they admire in some capacity, truly believes in or stands by this product. This can cause someone to buy the product without hesitation, because they trust the influencer.
It is fully possible for influencers to take on an advertisement or paid partnership, just for the money. There is no way to monitor how genuine these posts are, influencers may not even be using these products for all we know. It could be secret common practice to receive free product, write up a post about how much you love the product, without even using it, just to receive payment.
People want to believe the people they follow and trust what they're saying because they have built para-social relationships with these people. The reality is, these influencers have no idea who you are and can easily look at each follower as nothing more than another number to help them make money off of Instagram.
Ethics codes are a great way, but if they are not enforced, or there is no actual penalty it makes it easy to work around the ethics for self-serving reasons.
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| Bri Hall (@brihallofficial) Instagram advertisement post for Special K. |
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| Khloe Kardashian Instagram advertisement post for Flat Tummy Tea. |
Hi Brooke, I appreciated reading your blog post this week because I do remember the days when having a friend or trusted individual "endorse" a product, restaurant, hair stylist, service company really meant something.
ReplyDeleteThese days, I like some influencers, but knowing they all get kick backs makes it less authentic. One thing I really dislike is on Tik Tok, advertisers will make an ad and pose it to look like an everyday person doing a tik tok. For a few seconds, I think, "Oh I wonder what this person has to say about this product." But then I just realize its a paid "sponsored" ad and I quickly swipe. I hate how they try to trick you into thinking it's just an average person.