Today, the Financial Times printed an article detailing how we in the marketing community are, or should be, bracing ourselves for the shock of new regulations aimed at preventing bloggers and other purveyors of online media from making false claims. Me? I think they missed the real story.
According to the Financial Times:
“Revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials by the Federal Trade Commission, now under review and expected to be adopted, would hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and users of social networking sites who receive samples of their products. The guidelines would also hold bloggers liable for the statements they make about products.”
I may be alone here, but I don’t see how this new regulation from the FTC hurts us. In fact, I think it will weed out the false prophets and social spammers that are already starting to junk up the space.
What’s more, I think the Financial Times is a bit off in it’s definition of viral marketing:
“The main target of the new guidelines appears to be the widespread practice of viral marketing in which companies recruit non- employees to talk up products in exchange for samples or promotions.”
That’s not viral marketing. To me, good viral marketing is about creating a message that is authentic and relevant enough that it spreads by virtue of its content. Viral marketing is the video that can’t be ignored on YouTube. Something that does what this does:
…the cool website that lets you build a new car online
and the white paper or blog entry that effectively addresses a common business problem.
Sure, there’s more to it, but good viral marketing is not the Sham Wow guy doing a bit of personal selling via his blog shortly before going out to punch strippers. It’s true, product reviewers are an important part of the viral marketing world. But there is a basic conflict of interest in blogging about a product only because you were enticed to do so. There’s a sliding scale out there with true, journalistic product reviewers on one end and the charlatans on the other. I think all this will do is make people think twice before leaning heavily towards repeating company sponsored marketing messages in return for shammy cloths and razor blade sharpeners.
So, thank you Mr. FTC for making people be more thoughtful about how they share information. The only people in trouble here are the lazy people.
