I love branding and have spent 15 years learning about and teaching on the subject. I guess you would say that I am a brand junkie! But all is not what it used to be and branding and marketing have blurred the lines between what is fact and what is fiction. I’m currently reading Obsessive Branding Disorder: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion by Lucas Conley and it has brought up some really great thoughts about this profession. I’ll write my book review when I complete the book, but the last two chapters, four and five, got me on a tangent and asking a few questions.
- How many people that invest in their blogs (business or personal) sell advertising or market products with it?
- How many of those products or services that you take money for do you actually use personally?
- Is promoting brands that you don’t like or use just for the cash unethical or dishonest?
As our society becomes so driven on brands, marketing, and money I believe people will just start peddling a bunch of crap and this is not good for branding, people making the products or offering services, or for ourselves personally.
How many people remember the AT&T program where you were rewarded for selling out your friends and family? There may be die hard lovers of the AT&T brand and that’s cool, but how many gave a flip less other than the fact there was a carrot at the end of the stick? We convinced our closest loved ones to join the party and then the party went bad. It hurt all of us and tainted our view on referring friends.
It’s stupid to continue on this course of selling out for a dollar — especially when Americans are even willing to sell ad space on their children to earn a buck [see page 109]. We must stop the madness! I admit that I’ve accepted cash for advertising services on websites I would never recommend to anyone and I’m ashamed. Why? It just feels wrong.
We are in a time where we need to represent our brands with honesty and responsibility and not blur the lines by making it just about marketing and money. We owe it to ourselves and our readers to promote and sell only the things we truly believe in. We must change our patterns of consumerism or stand the chance that every one will begin to eye each other with extreme cynicism and kill all of our credibility in the future.
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Could not agree more with this post. I can understand if you are promoting a product that relates to your website or if you truly have tried and liked it. You should promote something because you believe it will be beneficial to your customers, not just to make money.
Also some bloggers recieve a free product for a week as long as they promote the company in one of their posts.
Ryan,
Thanks for your thoughts! Again, I agree…It’s time to stop selling out and doing something only for a payoff.