Disguising Ads & Full Disclosure
Do you remember those Kevin Trudeau infomercials on TV? Where some one interviews him and he sells his books?
Do you think that there is anyone in the world who saw those ads and thought that it was a real interview? That Kevin didn’t pay for it himself? I doubt it. Yet – did it affect Kevin’s sales? Not one bit.
Ads that look like interviews
work better than
ads that look like ads.
Even if it doesn’t fool people.
The Disguised Ads started gaining traction in the direct response marketing world. When master copywriters like Eugene Schwartz and Ben Suarez and Gary Halbert started writing sales letters and ads that read like newspaper articles. You couldn’t make out the difference between their articles and the real articles in a newspaper. Except that their articles had a call-to-action that asked people to buy something.
These disguised ads worked like gangbusters. But many readers complained. The newspapers shouldn’t deceive their readers by letting them believe that one of their ads is actually an article.
The newspapers listened to their readers. And most of them now add “Advertisement” or some such heading to any disguised sales letter that they run.
But do these “Advertisement” Headings decrease sales?
Not one bit!
The Blog Disclosure Debate
Many bloggers have embraced this disguise-ads-increase-response idea. They publish entire blog posts because some one pays them to do so.
And because of this, there is a huge uproar in the blogosphere.
1. Should bloggers publish disguisded blog posts?
2. If they do publish such paid posts, should they add a disclaimer letting people know that they’ve been paid for that post?
Quite a few bloggers and blog readers are against commercializing their blogs. And disguised-blog-posts is a BIG No-No in their books.
On the other hand, bloggers who already publish disguised blog posts don’t want to add any kind of disclaimer. Because they believe that will reduce their readership and sales.
My opinion?
- It is ok to disguise your ads as posts. But don’t sell your soul to make a quick buck. Make sure the ad is relevant for your readers.
- And remember this rule of thumb: you should have 4 good original posts for every 1 disguised ad. (80% authentic content for every 20% ad-content.)
- And always add a disclaimer to paid posts. They will not harm your sales. But will keep a few readers happy. And prevent a back-lash.
Spread the word:
Comments (2)
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Test comment to fix an error…
Posted 22 Aug 2007 #
Amazing how some older posts regain their primacy in current buzz! This is, of course, a hot topic of late 2009, as some U.S. legislation is focused on requiring bloggers to make full disclosures and give up their disguising ways. The intent is probably good, although the plan is full of implementation pitfalls and definitions which will be debated for some time.
Your advice to “always add a disclaimer to paid posts. They will not harm your sales” should be encouraging to anyone hesitating to do the right thing.
Posted 17 Oct 2009 #