Pro-Regulation: Relation To Regulation Of Traditional Advertising
May 14, 2008
Marketers’ ruthless efforts to advertise their messages are not new. The popularity of the traditional media such as television and radio drove advertisers to exploit it to get their messages across the viewers by any means. To draw attention from people consciously or even unconsciously, some advertisers would exaggerate and make big claims about their products, deceive people, subliminally plant messages during the movies etc. Famously, in 1957, people in the movie theater were exposed to subliminal messages of flashed on the screen every 5 seconds, and according to James Vicary, a market researcher, the sales of Popcorn and Coca-Cola shot up during a six week period.
Thus, advertising has been regulated by the government to give viewers decision rights to become involved in it. Since big broadcast companies are in control of when and where the information would be shown to people, it is easy to govern the transmission of information to the public through traditional media.
Article 12 in the International Code of Advertising from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and The World Business Organization declares that advertising shall be clearly distinguishable from other media content and that it shall be easy to be identified and recognized as such:
“Advertisements should be clearly distinguishable as such, whatever their form and whatever the medium used; when an advertisement appears in a medium which contains news or editorial matter, it should be so presented that it will be readily recognized as an advertisement.”
In the USA, the federal government has enacted a number of “consumer protection” laws and regulations which are enforced by the Federal Trade Commision whose mission is to eliminate acts or practices that are unfair or deceptive. Under Section 5 of the FTC Actdeclares an act or practice deceptive if (1) there is a “representation or omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer” who is “acting reasonably under the circumstances;” and (2) that the representation or omission is “material”-defined as an act or practice “likely to affect the consumer’s conduct or decision with regard to a product or service.”
Then, even for grassroot marketing online, the existing advertisement ethics should be applied since its context is advertising and it targets consumers. Bad Grassroot marketing is not much different to deceiving consumers. It uses surreptitious practices that fail to disclose or reveal the true relationship with the company producing or sponsoring the marketing message. It can also involve intrusion and exploitation of social relationships as means of achieving effectiveness.
An example of a bad grassroot marketing is the Edelman/Wal-mart astroturfing incident. A blog called Wal-Marting Across America was created by a couple known as Jim and Laura as they drove cross country and it included regular interviews with Wal-mart workers, reporting about their satisfaction with their working conditions. It turns out that Walmart’s PR firm Edelman paid the couple who had different identities to write for the blog and support them.
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1.
Kristen | May 14, 2008 at 12:48 pm
You talk about traditional advertising laws, and then try to draw a direct link between those traditional laws and grassroots forms of advertising. The problem is that there is a huge different. Grassroots advertising is very similiar to the concept of “street teams,” who are paid to promote products by wearing the brand, using the brand, and talking positively about the brand. However for grassroots media, this “street team” is moved online.
If a company chooses to pay an individual to have a certain opinion, the person has the freedom to express that opinion given that it doesn’t contain false information. If a company chose to post positive reviews of their own company and products, that’s not unlawful–it’s self promotion.
In the case of the Edelman/Wal-mart astroturfing incident, the couple posed to be people that they aren’t. This raises a few unique concerns, I admit, but how do you distinguish an offline identity from an online identity? Aren’t they automatically different anyways? Also, considering the amateur quality of most of the information on the internet, viewers are not entitled to be ensured that everything they read is correct and true. Real or fake, paid or not, the couiple blogging in this incident were 100% entitled to their 1st amendment right write whatever they wanted.
2.
julie | May 14, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Kristen-
First I want to define grassroot advertising to you. It is promoting the product or services through personal recommendations rather than using a traditional media. That means the company itself is not advertising messages to potential consumers through TV ads but already existing consumers are spreading messages voluntarily because its greatness. Companies can choose to post positive reviews of their own company products, as long as they are honest opinions of individuals. They do not need to pay people to give positive reviews if their products are great since people would praise it already to others.
Grassroot advertising is wholly dependent and trust and has everything to do with trust because you would trust people’s recommendations more than someone selling the product for the company. Grassroot advertising is good; it is when marketers use it with bad taste that it becomes an issue. The reason companies pay people is because they know that people would trust others’ opinions.
Yes, bad practices of grassroot marketing existed before the advent of the Internet. The reason grassroot marketing became more recognized now is because of people’s wide social interactions online. People rely on personal recommendations more than ever. Even when trying a new restaurant, an album, or book, people go to review sites to learn what other people’s experiences were like. Imagine all people are hired by the companies to write good reviews about everything. How would you trust anybody’s opinions and how would you know what’s good or not until you have not experienced it? Online or offline is not the issue here.
When a company pays people to deliver its messages to consumers, it becomes advertising than a form of free speech. With advertising, law requires that advertisements be clearly distinguishable so whatever the form and medium used it is RECOGNIZED as such.
Bad grassroot marketing violates exactly this, and deceives people that it is NOT a form of advertising and uses social practices to make people believe the product or service is good. Even though we may not be able to discover whose opinions are fake and whose are honest, as in the past, but if they are caught, they should be subject to violating advertising laws.