Monday, November 21, 2011

Infomercial

NOUN:

A (television) program that promotes a product in an informative and supposedly objective way.


Here, here and here.

All upfront as "Sponsored by Nuffnang" and I don't for a moment believe they are lying in their posts. I actually like and use the product they're spruiking. But it's important to realise that when you write a gushing commentbox attached to a post such as this you become the equivalent of those clapping, smiling infomercial audience members. Only you're not getting paid, only enticed with the possibility of free goods. Not sure if it's worth it.



7 comments:

Duyvken said...

taffeta, pearls, puffy sleeves? No wonder I am confused when I go shopping. It is interesting to read all those positive commentboxes that are actually competition entries. I wonder if the companies then use those when calculating positive feedback in social media. I suspect they probably do. Although, I do read the sponsored posts on blogs I follow and usually do feel more positively disposed towards the product that has been reviewed after I read the posts. I often have to remind myself to not be distracted by shiny things!

librarygirl said...

I stopped reading magazines because I detested the advertising. Dressing up advertising with competitions and gifts from bloggers.... no thank you. And all the bloggers flogging the same product in the same time frame makes me want to run away from it (the product)... in the other direction.

Janet said...

I find the ads strangely compelling - as it's the beginning of the warm weather sunburn season, I'm in the market for a new sunscreen - and these "work" on me better than other ads which I suppose I rarely see because I don't often read magazines or watch commercial telly. But then again I don't have any blogs in my reader that do the nuffnang thing because after a while they get well, kind of nuffnangy.

KPB said...

It's not. Hence why i don't do it. Anymore. But get this, the other day I spent three hours laying pavers in our backyard and replanting big clumps of lawn into our front bit of nature strip that is quite the homage to weedery.

I came inside, sculled some water, showered etc and then read my emails - only to have one from a PR saying 'here's a weird pitch' and it being about having some lawn company come and look at our lawn and me to blog about it to receive cashola to buy lawn/spend on lawn.

Now that is what I call totally worth it.

PS - totally missing you, went to ring and text you five gagillion times in last few weeks but life is kicking me hard.

Julie said...

Very interesting. I don't follow the style blogs (having none myself!) but I do find myself more warmly disposed to a craft book, for example, if it has been positively reviewed by a blogger I admire, or whose opinion I respect. Like you, I don't think they are lying, but inevitably getting something for free must impact in some way on the opinions you express. Eleanor, you are a gem, you make me think, and consider, and laugh. Thanks

LBA said...

+1 librarygirl and janet.

Nuffnangy indeed.
Not a fan.

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