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FTC Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials
If you’re a blogger getting paid to post, you’re now going to have to disclose it. The social Web is under Federal Trade Commission (FTC) scrutiny. I have worked with several mommy bloggers with very high integrity. A few, however, were running pay for post operations — printing product reviews in exchange for cash — without revealing payments. That is influence gone awry. Now the FTC has put bloggers on notice with a requirement to disclose payments or promotional consideration related to such reviews.
The Federal Trade Commission recently approved final revisions to the guidance it gives to advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act.
The notice incorporates several changes to the FTC’s Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which address endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities, as well as the disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers. The Guides were last updated in 1980.
Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor.
Enjoy the Love at Shambhu Music
Enjoy beautiful new age guitar music by Shambhu at ShambhuMusic.com. Learn more about Shambhu.
CLIENT NEWS: GloPos Announces Technology That Makes All Mobile Phones Location Aware
GloPos today announced its software-only positioning technology that makes all mobile phones location aware — outdoors, indoors, and even underground.
GloPos Technology requires only a cellular network to make all mobile phones location aware. No additional hardware like GPS or W-LAN is required on a mobile device for achieving accurate positioning.
“By making all phones location aware, GloPos Technology is set to revolutionize the indoor positioning and social location market, including mobile search and personalized mobile advertising. This will massively expand the positioning market,” said Mikael Vainio, CEO. “GloPos is a superior solution versus W-LAN and GPS-based indoor positioning applications which today serve less than 20 percent of the total yearly 1.3 billion unit mobile device market,” Vainio added.
GloPos’ patent-pending, self-learning algorithms calculate an accurate position fix to within 1-40 meters even in places where no W-LAN access points are available or no GPS can be used (i.e. in shopping malls, subways, underground parking, airports, sports arenas, and exhibition centers). GloPos works wherever cellular network coverage is available.
GloPos Technology does not consume any extra battery life while operating as cell information is already being used to stay connected. GloPos enables longer device usage versus GPS and W-LAN, allowing battery power to be used for more advanced applications and driving more powerful processors.
GloPos co-founders have over 20 years combined mobile experience with Nokia and Ericsson. CEO Mikael Vainio brings to GloPos more than a decade of executive experience with Nokia and Ericsson. Before joining GloPos he served in Ericsson Middle East HQ as Vice President Strategy, Marketing and Communications. Vice-President Alexander Le Bell has held executive positions with leading mobile and technology companies, including Ericsson, Nokia and Philips. He was Ericsson’s Director for Strategy and Business Intelligence for the Middle East. Prior to that he served in Nokia Multimedia, managing the operator business in Central Europe with some of the largest operators in the world, including T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2-Telefonica.
For more information visit: http://glopos.com.
About GloPos
GloPos was founded in 2009 to bring its new and innovative indoor positioning technology to the mobile consumer marketplace. GloPos is a technology spin-off company of 4TS Corporation, an innovative Finland-based company that develops location- and sensor-based technologies and solutions.
New PR Hires Must Know Social Media
Public relations professionals are taking the lead in managing the organization’s use of social media communications channels, and social media skills are nearly as important as traditional media relations skills when searching for and hiring public relations professionals, according to a new study, The 2009 Digital Readiness Report .
Among the key insights from the study are:
- When searching for prospective new hires, social media communications skills are nearly as important as traditional media relations skills.
- Public relations leads marketing in the management and oversight of all social media communications channels within organizations.
- When searching for prospective new hires, social media communications skills are nearly as important as traditional media relations skills.
- Public relations leads marketing in the management and oversight of all social media communications channels within organizations.
- Marketing leads public relations in the management and oversight of bulk email communications and search engine optimization.
- Social networking, blogging and micro-blogging skills are the three most important social media communications skills for job candidates to have, according to public relations and marketing hiring decision makers.
- Most organizations are considering hiring social media specialists.
The 2009 Digital Readiness Report 
“Essential Online Public Relations and Marketing Skills” is available for download free at http://www.ipressroom.com/readiness (registration is required).
Social Media Skills Influence Hiring Decisions
Survey data also suggest that public relations and marketing professionals without new media and social media communications skills cannot, and will not, satisfy the requirements of today’s hiring decision makers.
The research also suggest a potential gap in online communications strategy at most organizations, since the channels with the greatest reach and adoption levels — email and search engine optimization — do not appear to be the most important channels in practice.
In addition, organizations do not appear to be as intent on leveraging the trust advantage of their own websites over social networking services to promote their company line. Instead, organizations say they’re more focused on getting the word out than on using new media and social media channels to attract visitors to their own destination websites.
Is that blogger review really a paid ad? The FTC wants you to know.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is stepping into the practice of paid posts on the blogosphere and it’s about time. I have personally been solicited by several mommy bloggers who shall remain anonymous willing to write only for cash. Pay-to-play schemes among mommy bloggers have been commonplace, it is akin to payola in the record industry, and it does a disservice to other bloggers.
Newsweek just wrote a story on the topic, “Trusted Mom or Sellout? How some mommy bloggers are being co-opted by corporate concerns.”
Decades ago there was a crackdown on payola in the music industry as record promoters paid off radio DJs to spin their records and popularize artists. The practice has largely been curtailed, although payments are still made under the table to DJs in major markets. Brands have been willing to shower freebees on bloggers in exchange for editorial coverage that fails to attribute the gifts and their influence. It stinks and it’s corrupting the blogosphere.
According to Consumer Reports:
“The FTC is updating its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” which were last refreshed in 1980. What this has to do with bloggers is a new form of advertising, called word-of-mouth marketing, in which advertisers pay your favorite bloggers to “review” their products. The bloggers get paid, for example, with free product samples; gift certificates for JCPenney shopping sprees; cash payments; or the loan of a $30,000 Ford Flex for a year.
The bloggers are supposed to write whatever they want about the product—pro or con—but the payments put into question whether they would be inclined to seriously bite the hand of a “friend” lending a car or giving other valuable goodies or cash.
Last December social media blogger Chris Brogan shared on his blog that he was taking cash from Panasonic to visit the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as their guest. Chris, who I like, rationalized that it was OK to take that cash for travel, hotels and meals, because he liked the idea of attending CES “for free,” he was going to hang with other professional colleagues who were doing the same thing, and he was honest and open about it. Therefore, it was ethical. Of course and no surprise, Chris later blogged about Panasonic which felt like a quid pro quo to me. That’s the problem. If I am going to trust Chris Brogan as an unbiased source but he is taking cash from companies he blogs about, his credibility and reputation go in the trash can.
Years ago I took a reporter from Newsday for lunch to talk about my company. That reporter refused to allow me to pay even for a sandwich and a soda. Why? Reporters at Newsday are disallowed from taking free anything from companies and their PR reps. Bravo!!!
The FTC is right to investigate and they should extend this investigation far and wide.
How Advertising is Being Impacted by Internet, Social Networks, Online Viewing
From Josh Bernoff at Groundswell:
More changes are coming to the advertising marketplace due to the impact of the Internet, social networks and online viewing.
A recent survey by Forrester speaks to new data from marketers on their expected ad buys with respect to direct mail, television, magazines, outdoor, newspapers, and radio ad buying.
“70% expected the effectiveness of channels like created social media, online video, and mobile marketing to increase. The result is that digital, which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years. Along the way overall advertising budgets will decline. This is huge.
It means we are all digital marketers now, since digital is at the center of many campaigns anyway. It means media is in trouble, or at least in the middle of a transformation. For example, online video ads, which will be about $870 million this year, will grow to over $3 billion in 2014. What will this do to networks plans to put more of their shows online in places like Hulu. How will it accelerate some newspapers plans to become more and more centered around online?
And it means that social “media”, which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years. And this doesn’t even count displays ads on social networks (which are in the display ads category.) Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth. Pundits have been declaring the end of mass media and advertising for years now. From my 14 years of experience analyzing this stuff, I’ve learned that things die very slowly, but there are real trends you can see. If you’re in advertising, you’d better learn to speak digital, because that’s the way the world is going.”
NASA AMES…Getting Mooned Again
I remember joyfully when Mom used to let me cut school for NASA launches and re-entries. Had I had more of a mathematical and scientific personality vs a creative, ADD mentality, I might have become a pilot or astronaut.
I have spent the majority of this great life exploring inner space through meditation with Guru Sri Chinmoy and that’s been an extraordinary, life-changing experience.
Still, I’m still really excited that NASA’s Ames facility in Silicon Valley is managing the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission. This is a pretty cool effort to help determine if there is water hidden in the permanently dark craters of one of the moon’s poles.
NASA plans to crash a vehicle into the moon’s south pole and fly a partner craft through the huge plume created by the crash to analyze it for signs of water and other compounds. Additional space and earth-based instruments also will study the plume, which scientists expect to be larger than 200 metric tons.
If there are substantial amounts of water ice there, it could be used by astronauts to make rocket fuel when they later visit the moon. The $79 million crash is expected to take place in October.
I’m all for going to the moon and Mars while dealing with all the other financial and social exigencies on earth. Space exploration has, in past, challenged America to brilliant innovation, and resulted in all kinds of new products and services.
And we must redirect the innovation driving America’s weapons industry into clean tech, space tech and other more peaceful manifestations of science.
Follow LCROSS on Twitter.
Congress Needs Team Building and Consensus Training
I have been working with Jeff Dorman, who is a dear friend and client, on a series of videos that articulate his philosophy on executive training. Jeff, who heads JDA International, a leadership training firm based on Princeton, NJ, cut his teeth in the food processing industry building Dorman Cheese with his family into a huge, national brand. Now he’s a highly respected national trainer who serves many Fortune 100 clients.
I’ve been reviewing a series of Jeff’s video segments that my firm produced through which he conveys his philosophy, expertise and experience on a number of topics including public speaking, leadership, employee performance, management, team building, consensus, etc. I walked away very impressed by the methodology he applied to his training approach which has helped thousands of executives and supervisors perform more effectively and efficiently in financial services, banking, food processing, and manufacturing.
So when I read the NY Times’ story about Obama’s health care plan, and how the Republicans in Congress stood up in opposition to it from the moment it was announced (like just about every other Obama initiative), I realized that Members of Congress could benefit from team building and consensus training from a guy like Jeff Dorman.
As Jeff pointed out in one of his videos, managers often are promoted into positions for which they lack communications, public speaking, and leadership skills. With some basic coaching, these folks can perform better and so will the company.
Is there a team building opportunity here for Members of Congress?
PS: To learn more about leadership, performance, communication and sales training, check out JDA’s blog.
