Ask the Readers: How Much Money Would it Take For You to Compromise Your Principles?
Published on - January 9th, 2009 (by J.D. Roth) There was once a man who became a vegetarian. Because he believed that all living creatures have souls, he swore he would never again consume animal flesh. For three years, he ate only vegetable matter. People offered him money to eat meat, but he steadfastly refused.
“Will you try a turkey sandwich for $2?” a woman asked one day. “No,” he said.
“Will you try this hot dog for $20?” a little boy once asked at the county fair. “No,” he said.
“Will you try a piece of steak for $200?” asked his mother-in-law at her 70th birthday party. “No,” he said.
“Will you try a piece of ham for $2,000?” asked his wife on Christmas Day. The man considered it for a moment, but then he shouted, “No. I am a vegetarian. I will not eat meat!”
One day a crafty gentleman appeared to him. “Will you try a piece of bacon?” the gentleman asked. “All you have to do is tell me what you think of it — and then tell your friends. If you do this little thing, I will give you $20,000.”
What did the man do?
Have you ever wondered how much money it would take for you to compromise your principles? I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never really been tested.
Today I was tested.
A major U.S. company offered to purchase advertising on this site. That’s not unusual. What’s unusual was the money involved and the method they wished to employ. They were offering to pay an enormous sum in order for me to provide “advertorials” — to promote their product under the guise of a series of blog posts.
Though Get Rich Slowly generates revenue through traditional advertising and through affiliate sales, I’ve always refused to provide paid posts. Maybe I’m performing mental gymnastics, but for myself, there’s a difference between earning money when I recommend a product of my own accord, and earning money by posting an article for which I’ve been asked to be a shill.
I’ve spent the last two days laboring over this decision. I’ve talked with friends and family. I’ve talked with colleagues. I’ve sought sage advice from every corner. And I’ve considered a variety of creative solutions:
- Have another blogger write about the product, and split the money with him.
- Write about the product and then offer all of the income to you, the readers, via some sort of contest. (I really liked this idea.)
- Write about the product and donate all of the income to charity.
I cannot deny that I’ve been sorely tempted by this proposal.
In the end, however, a problem still remained: by accepting the offer, I would be allowing an advertiser to direct my editorial content. And if I did this once, then what about the next time? Where would I draw the line? Would there even be a line? All of the solutions left me feeling a little bit dirty, and I didn’t like it. The only way I could feel clean was to decline.
Instead, I submitted a proposal that says, “Hey. Get Rich Slowly is one of the biggest personal finance blogs on the internet. It’s good to advertise here. Give me the money and I will take down every other ad for a month. You can have all of the ad space.” Again, maybe I’m performing mental gymnastics, but this doesn’t make me feel dirty. I’ve accepted paid advertising on this site since day one. The only thing different about this would be the order of magnitude.
But it’s unlikely that the advertiser will accept my counter-proposal. It’s not what they’re after.
Posting an advertorial isn’t illegal or immoral; it’s just against my personal principles, and conflicts with my vision for this site. But if I had been offered a million dollars, I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t be having this conversation. My principles would have vanished. I would have eaten the bacon — and then I would have told you all how great it tasted.
Have you faced a similar dilemma in your own life? Have your principles ever been challenged by money? What did you do? Were you happy with your decision?
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I hear your pain.
The only time in my life as a writer/photographer that I’ve intentionally destroyed negatives was when I had a large cash offer for some powerful images I’d shot in the midst of a tragedy. Oh, btw, the offer was from the New York Times. Would have changed the course of my career.
Problem was, I felt that these particular images didn’t belong in the newspaper. They were too … um … intimate (not sex; death).
I said no.
And I’ve never regretted it.
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For me, I’m glad you didn’t take it. I like my ads along the side, where I know what they are. (Which is why they want to get around me by purchasing the content space.)
For you, I’m sorry they didn’t offer you a million. Then you could start a new blog telling how you invested your million-dollar windfall!
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I love the solution you came up with. Would you have been able to go along with it, if you loved this company and what they stood for? Or was it just the thought of, in a way, having to pretend and talk up this company to us? I considered pay per post at one time, but I wasn’t able to fake my enthusiasm enough to get approved – I had to create an introductory post that raved about the site. I didn’t know anything about it, so I guess I was kind of dull. Besides my BlogHerAds let me know I needed to create a sister blog for this type of thing. I don’t recall having been tempted by money in this way in my life, although I do face moral situations where I have to make a decision involving money. For example, I am known for not “overlooking” an extra payment from a contractor – yes, the one that proceeded me would just keep mum about it. Or maybe she really didn’t know, the record keeping was atrocious, invoice numbers weren’t even used when I took over! It is good to have an intact moral base within. I meet too many who don’t, it seems to be less and less common. Off my soapbox. Thanks again.
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Doing advertorials would also have been a bad business decision in the long run. Your blog’s cred would go down by the majority of readers who are smart enough to notice and traffic would also likely decrease.
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Regardless of the outcome, I’m just inspired by your willingness to be honest with me, the world and yourself. This is something that’s really hard to do.
Thanks for inspiring honesty.
I had a situation where a client asked me to sell a mutual fund and i forgot to do it. It was a huge amount and as a result of the delay in taking action, the client lost $16,000. It was 100% my fault.
I guess I could have tried to make up some story but I just picked up the phone and told the client what happened and ate the loss. I actually felt really good (and broke!) because it was the right thing to do. I hesitated at first before calling the client. I really didn’t know what to do and I flashed on ideas on how to get out of it but in the end I was very happy I made the right decision.
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Good for you.
I’d only caution you about taking too much of a relativistic approach to this issue (“I’m not condemning others, it’s just not right for me”).
It is wrong for anyone, and not just because of how it makes you feel. And it’s a little different from the vegetarian, because of your relationship with your readers.
Why? Because in good faith you offer your blog as an independent view of your content. It’s an issue of trust.
This goes for anyone who doesn’t say, right up at the top of their content, “I’m being paid to say what I’m saying.”
When you violate trust, even implicitly, it becomes a moral issue. It has to do with lying.
You chose not to lie, even covertly, even if you could get away with it. That’s integrity.
That’s a moral choice, not an emotional one (although it has emotional reverberations), and as such, is true for everyone. If someone represents himself as unbiased but actually has a bias, he is lying. Lies can be unspoken. And that’s immoral.
If every private person held himself to these standards (and they are objective, though perhaps subtle standards), we would have more luck asking public persons to do so as well!
So good for you.
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J.D., I think you made a good call on behalf of your readers. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but there’s some industry research that suggests that *unidentified* advertorial content erodes reader trust if/when they learn of it.
However, you might consider the example of the Fug Girls, who have recently accepted advertorial content, but with rules. It’s all presented in a black-framed box (a completely different look from their design standard), and they pledge at the top to notify readers when they are presenting advertorial content. It’s also tagged and titled as a sponsored post.
http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2009/01/test_peoples_choice_sponsored.html
(I note now that the black frame has been removed; I wonder if that was at the sponsor’s request.)
Anyway, as a print journalist at a small paper, I salute your ethics, and I appreciate that even identifying the posts as sponsored still takes your time away from, um, legit editorial content.
Still love the blog, still respect you.
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There is another way, which is to label the blogpost ‘advertorial’. Either you or the company can write the blogpost. This way it’s clear that it’s a paid advertorial, not your personal opinion. This is the way I handle proposals like this, I have several (dutch) websites with a lot of visitors.
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I strongly think you’re on the right track, there. Newspapers have (allegedly) kept a thick wall between the business/advertising decisions and the editorial decisions. Accepting payment for a blog post crosses a line that calls into question every product you recommend. We would have to start asking ourselves your motivations. Does he really like this product, or did he get paid?
You made the right call, even if it was a tough one.
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Congratulations. I may not always agree with every article but they are unbiased (from corporations) opinions. Those unbiased opinions support free thought and discussion without the intent to motivate the readers to an inherent contridiction of the blog’s purpose. How can you help someone get rich slowly when draining them of cash on unneeded commercial items all for your personal gain. Again, congratulations!
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I would consider it to have been fine, possibly a good idea, to have done the article but with a disclaimer at the top explaining that it was paid for by the company. You need not have lied during the article, just given an honest overview of how their product worked. Obviously if the advertisers wanted you to lie through your teeth about how great the product was even when it wasnt, then that’s a slightly different matter.
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I write for another website for a small fee of $100 per article. Usually I write about any topic I choose. I was requested by my editor to write an article about a general topic of interest, but he specified that I should interview employees from a certain large advertising sponsor and get my information from their press releases on the subject.
Since I am in medicine I absolutely would have rejected any request to write about something that was related to a pharmaceutical company, no matter what the pay, even for a million dollars, but we have to keep our standards higher in medicine because bias from drug companies affects patients’ health and can even be a life or death question.
This company was merely a provider of educational services, so I ended up accepting the request, though I made a point of not writing the article in such a way as to try to promote the company’s services. I still feel a little guilty about this article because of course I was mentioning the company’s name in conjunction with the people I quoted, and thereby advertising for them in a way, but then again the site features ads for their products and so I didn’t feel that it was any secret that they were a sponsor and had probably asked us to interview them for this article. I believe that when there is a conflict of interest such as this (where you are trying to provide an unbiased perspective in a piece of writing but cannot because you are being sponsored by a company who stands to profit, you should make a published statement with the article that makes clear the nature of the relationship so that readers can draw their own conclusions about bias. This is how the medical community does things for research etc. To apply this to your situation, I don’t think it would be wrong to write about something at a company’s request and be paid for it as long as that was explicitly stated and you were able to apply some sort of objective analysis to the product you were discussing. Caveat emptor, as long as the sponsorship is plainly stated.
I do know physicians who take money from drug companies and donate it to charity, but I don’t think this is a good solution in the case of medicine because by listening to their spiel (what you get paid for), you are consciously or not being influenced and therefore could prescribe someone a drug that perhaps is not indicated or would not be the best drug for them. However, unless you believe that you could be negatively impacting the lives of others by promoting a product that would perhaps affect their finances negatively, I’m not sure this is the case for your situation.
What if you got offered a lot of money to be a spokesperson for ING Direct let’s say, and go on TV commercials and tell people to buy the product? Would you have done that?
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J.D., I’m glad you didn’t take it. I’d have to agree with cb @ #3. Your readers might notice, especially if the company really isn’t all that great, and your readership would suffer. I’m sure you’d still get search engine traffic, but this sort of thing really could affect your credibility – especially among other personal finance blogs if it’s not a great company.
If it were a great company, it might be harder to tell and people might not notice as much. It’d be like writing about Vanguard a lot. We know they’re a great company, so no one would think that’s suspicious. But if you suddenly started writing about how great private equity is and that everyone should invest in it, we’d know something is up.
Either way, thanks for sticking to your ethical standards!
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I think the if it was for a product that you really would endorse on your own, and if you make it clear that you were writing a paid-for-post, then I’d say it would be fine. Your readers do trust you, and they do want you to make money — you provide a great service to us. I think if you were upfront and honest with us (and yourself) about it, your readers would support you.
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What does it benefit to man if he gains the entire world, but loses himself?
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You would be deceiving your readers and tricking them for your monetary gain. And how would that make you feel over time? How would it change your character and your self-respect. It’s kind of like selling your soul down the river. For myself, I know that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that I was secretly taking advantage of a whole lot of people in a way that they were unaware.
You’ve done the right thing. You’ll make your money – but not in this way.
Now you can change the name of your blog to:
Get Rich Honorably.
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Mrs. Accountability wrote: Would you have been able to go along with it, if you loved this company and what they stood for?
This is a fantastic question. I don’t know the answer. What if this were an advertorial for the Mini Cooper? Or for comic books? Or for bacon salt? I’m sure it would have been even more difficult for me to decide.
RE: labeling advertorials or sponsored posts
I did consider this. But it wasn’t really so much another option as a necessary component of any option I might choose to implement. That is, I felt like I’d want to identify any such paid content, regardless of how I handled it, so it wasn’t another way out really.
Even this morning, I still don’t know if I made the right call. I mean, from the point of my principles, I did. But are my principles right? I turned down a lot of money.
And I guess that’s my point. Until you’re actually faced with the choice of taking the money or standing by your principles, you don’t really know how you’re going to act. I’ve always said, “No paid posts. No way.” As if it were that easy to make the choice. but when it happens in real life, and the numbers are big enough, it’s not easy to make the decision at all.
Finally, I should point out that the thing that finally tipped the scales for me yesterday was my ongoing discussions with financial planners, and they’re continued obsession with “compliance”. To me, this became a notion of “compliance” with my readers.
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It’s a tough issue, and you certainly chose the harder path for now.
I hope I’m not being naive in this praise for Consumer Reports magazine (or Consumers Union, I suppose the company’s called) but this is exactly why they accept no advertisements whatsoever. The products and services they test are also acquired through normal means, not provided by the manufacturers.
In the end, for the most part, Consumer Reports seems to be the most trusted and respected source of reviews and analysis in our country; and this is why. Others, like Car and Driver in the automotive world, are fun to read, but they always seem to like everything they “test.”
So in an ethical sense, you’re definitely choosing the higher ground, not letting the trust waters become clouded with outside influences.
But practically, what you’re doing is simply further defining your business model. You’re turning down the easy money now, and hopefully you’ll be rewarded for this choice in the long run because readers will come to respect your word as that of an independent source rather than a writer/spokesman hybrid.
By all means, you should certainly do your best to capitalize on this premium that your writing has versus the words of other bloggers. I agree with you that it’s not necessarily wrong for other writers to be product spokesmen in disguise, but conversely you should certainly make it very clear that you are offering a superior product.
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FYI for GRS readers….Suze Orman’s new book is downloadable for free from Oprah’s website. Oh, and I wasn’t paid for this!
Good call on the advertorial JD, that just sounds decietful and a “slippery slope” to me.
Just curious though; would you accept money from a product that you’d previously endorsed (without profit) to do an advertorial for profit?
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p.s. I’m sometimes reluctant to post pieces like this that might be taken as self-congratulatory. Even this morning, I hate that it this can be read that way. My intent is not to pump myself up. It’s to discuss the nature of how money can corrupt personal principle. In a large way, I think our current economic crisis is a result of this problem. I’m interested in the philosophical nature of this question, not in adulation.
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J.D.
A very inspiring post to say the least. Like the others who commented above, I believe you made the right decision and most difficult. One thing that comes to mind when reflecting over the decision you made is: What goes around, comes around.
Congrats.
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J.D. –
I think that your response back was a very good one. You have a very well known financial blog and many products would be extremely lucky to get the number of “views” that you can generate.
Take a look at the following article to see what I mean: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081230/0352103250.shtml. It’s not unheard of to have paid sponsorship since the content being created is meaningful and draws a faithful crowd.
The Gaming website Penny Arcade has also always had a strong voice in their advertising. They will only promote the games/companies in their ads that they feel warrant the attention.
Landon
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@Leila: Very well said.
J.D., I understand why you are hesitant to condemn others who might do this, but Leila is right. There is a very clear distinction between paid advertising and editorial content. Or, at least, there should be. No mental gymnastics required to come to that conclusion. We read your blog because we trust you to give us honest information. We know what paid advertising looks like and we know the difference. Thank you for having the decency and good business sense to make the right call. And thank you for being so transparent about it. I hope if I am ever faced with such a choice that I am able to make the right call as well.
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@Ryan (#18)
When I first started this site, there was a period where I considered being completely ad-free, just like Consumer Reports. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t do it. For one, it’s allowed me to quit my day job and do this full time. For another, I feel like I’ve found a balance with advertising that I can live with.
Over the past two days, I spent a lot of time with Chris from The Art of Non-Conformity. He’s taken a different approach that has allowed him to remain advertising-free. He produces “value-added” products of his own to offer to his readers. For example, he’s writing a series of $40 e-books. I’ve read two of them, and they’re great. He also offers other products. By doing this, he’s able to avoid outside advertising, create additional content, and still make money. He’s hoping to go full-time this year. I think this is a brilliant solution, and it’s planted a seed in my brain. Could I do something like this, too? I don’t know. But it’s worth considering.
@Sue (#19)
Another great question. I sort of answered this earlier. I don’t know what I would do if, say, ING Direct were to ask me to do something similar. I do know how I responded to one similar recent request.
FNBO Direct is a big advertiser at Get Rich Slowly. It’s a good bank with a good product. I’m paid when people sign up for an account. I’m willing to mention FNBO from time-to-time in places where it’s appropriate. In December, though, they were doing a huge push for sales, and their ad rep called to ask if I’d do something to promote their site, such as write a post just about FNBO Direct.
This situation is similar to the one I’ve described in this post. An advertiser is suggesting I make a specific editorial decision. If I had thought of this myself, I might have done it. But because it was requested by the advertiser, I did not.
I’ve mentioned before that I struggle with what to do when PR companies send me information to write about, or when the CEO of some tech startup wants me to profile his company. We’ve discussed that in the past, and you all convinced me that I should simply write whatever I would normally write. If a good idea comes from a PR person, so be it.
But what if these people were paying me? How would that change things?
This is yet another example of why I say money is more about mind than it is about math. If it were just about math, I would have accepted this offer without question.
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Good for you!
I have never been really, really tested that way. I suppose I did join the military, dispite my opposition to the Iraq War, because I needed a good job (there were many other things I hoped to get out of military service, and I’ve gotten most of them), and I’m staying in because I can’t get a civilian job that will pay me this much, and I’m living pay check to pay check already, but I don’t think that is the same kind of situation. I betrayed some of my principals because I desperately need something that I don’t know how to get anywhere else. Its not a large amount of money, its a job. Still, you would never see me doing anything like you saw Lyndie England doing, that’s pushing the betrayal of principals too far. No matter how much money was offered to me (or how high ranking the officer was who “suggested” I do it), there are still certain lines I will not cross.
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I’ve had to deal with this. I’m a freelance writer, and I was offered $15K to do easy PR work for an organization whose mission was good overall, but which included a piece that most people would recognize as discriminatory, and which made me uncomfortable.
Even though my work would not have touched upon the issue that made me uncomfortable, I wasn’t sure I could support their work. I wrestled with this decision for days, and came up with many of the solutions you suggested, including donating a portion of my fee to the organizations that fight this type of discrimination.
In the end, I couldn’t do it. It was extremely hard to turn down the money, but I’m glad I did. Other assignments came in to fill the gap, and I never had to worry that I had compromised my principles.
You did the right thing. You do great work, and you’ll have other, better opportunities in the future.
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Your general question about what one is willing to do for money is a good one, and one that in some everyone who works for someone else faces every day. When office workers first were given internet access, everyone had to create limits on how much time they surfed the web during working hours. The statistics seem to be that lots of people are willing to accept payment for hours they aren’t actually working for a company. Similarly, anyone who works as in independent contractor paid by the hour has the temptation to pad the bill. those examples aren’t quite the same as being offered money to do something you feel is unprincipled, but the effect is the same, one has to make a decision about the morality of accepting money…
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I’d eat a dead beetle wrapped in dung for $5. If someone paid me so they could control me – that’s like mental kidnapping. I think you did the right thing by choosing to keep your free will intact.
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As far as I’m concerned you made the right choice, the only choice really.
Passive ads are a neccessary evil but to personally shill a product or service for pay under the guise of a legitimate post would instantly break all trust between you and the reader. People come here for legitimate advice, once the legitimacy line is blurred there is no turning back. IMOHO of course.
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I applaud your principles. I enjoy your blog entries for a relatively unbiased view of personal finance issues. If you had done your “sponsored blog”, it would have probably come across as fake, and it would have turned off many of your readers. Good job!
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Hi JD,
I don’t think anyone answered your question directly yet, so I will tell you how much it would take for me to sell out: $2 million dollars. Or at least I hope I would be strong enough not to, up until that point.
The reason being, it would have to be enough to retire instantly. $2 million at a modest 5% return produces a $100,000 revenue for the rest of your life.
Even still, there would obviously be contractual obligations beyond that payment. The buyer would probably want to get a series of articles on their product which would likely be desired in between some legitimate posts you would NOT want to write (c’mon, you’re a millionaire sellout now!).
Either way, I, like the others, applaud your decision.
~Chris Gammell
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This is one of those questions, what would Consumer Reports do? I look upon your (and a few similar blog sites) as providing honest and unpaid-for opinions. If you can’t provide that, then the blog becomes useless to me.
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Sorry to monopolize my own comments section like this, but I’ve literally been thinking about this for 48 hours now. It’s a lot of money. (On the order of Erin’s dilemma above.)
Here’s another grey area: I heard the story the other day of how when blogger Steve Pavlina published his book, he sent it to hundreds of other top bloggers on the condition that they review it. He didn’t care whether they gave it a good review or a bad review, he just wanted them to review it. When I heard that story, I thought it was fantastic, and I filed it away for when I publish my book. “What great marketing!” I thought.
But now I think, “How is this different than a paid post?” I mean, I do think there’s a difference, but I can’t explain why. Yet if I look at it objectively, it seems like the same thing, except the compensation is 1000 times smaller in this case. And maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe the larger the compensation, the more conflicted I become.
Publishers send me books to review all the time. On Tuesday, I’m posting my review of the new Motley Fool book. It’s a glowing review (I love the book). But this was a book that the publisher sent me, not one I bought myself.
How is this different?
Ah, this whole thing makes me recall fondly my college philosophy class. These are exactly the sorts of things we’d talk about at 7:00 in the morning MWF.
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That truly is impressive, J.D. I feel like I am have rarely been tested in this arena. I hope I would make the same decisions you have in similar circumstances. Commendable.
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This is a tough decision I’ve pondered on my own blog. I have plenty of advertising on my site but I’ve also rejected hundreds of dollars worth because I don’t agree with the business I’ve been asked to promote.
Would you ordinarily promote this business or is it something like a payday loan company which you abhor?
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Though admittedly not the point of the post, since this is a finance site, I couldn’t resist:
This was also probably a good financial decision. As you said, this is a popular site, and you can make plenty off of normal advertising, because you have a strong following. However, the sudden rise of “Product A by Company X is wonderful”, “Product B by Company X is wonderful”,…would be pretty easy to spot. I’m always leery of any product recommendations that don’t disclose the author’s relationship with the company, and I tend to unsubscribe / unbookmark sites when I stop trusting the author. You loose readers, and your most engaged readers go first.
It threatens the most valuable asset you have as a blog writer- loyal readers (which is why the company made the offer, they want your loyal readers). So the financial decision becomes, how much money do you make off of normal advertising minus how much of that would you loose from readers not visiting anymore (over the long term) vs how much they offered (short term).
I’m guessing regardless of the amount, you made the right financial choice because big companies don’t get big by making offers that lose them money. If they did offer you a million, it’s because they realize access to your readers is worth that much or more. Whatever they offered, it’s equal to or less than the value of the assess you already own.
In that way, the vegetarian metaphor is a little flawed – that’s purely a matter of principle vs money, because the vegetarian doesn’t gain financially by being a vegetarian – being a vegetarian doesn’t sell normal ads. Though there is definitely a strong moral component here, don’t forget that there’s also the chance of losing money over the long term in lost readership by taking the offer in the short term.
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I get this all the time. I’m not sure why.
I always respond back telling them I will do it, then I tell them what the terms are for advertising on my site.
I think it is overtly presumptuous for someone to contact a service provider to advertise on the service and try setting the terms of the ad rates.
I mean, can you imagine what the NY Times would do if someone asked to run a full-page ad and then laid out how much the would pay? Give me a break.
None of the persons wishing to advertise on my site have ever accepted my advertising terms.
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I think the difference in the Steve Pavlina example is that people may consent to review his book, but they don’t have to like it or disguise the deal. I personally am very glad you turned down this offer — and I think it is a very real benefit to you as well. I stopped reading another blog when it became obvious that the blogger was being paid for “product placement“ in the posts, and not coming clean about it. It destroyed his credibility for me. Your reputation is your most important asset. It’s built on not only the content of your articles, but your principles. If we know we can trust you to be aboveboard, not to hide secret deals or promote things you’ve been paid to promote while claiming to be objective, that puts you a notch above a great many pundits. If you were giving seemingly objective advice, but actually shilling for a company that paid you, what does that make you? A double agent. Like one of those investment advisors who tells you to buy So-and-So Fund without revealing that he’s actually paid by So-and-So Fund. Except that in that case, the lack of fee lets us guess that he’s paid by what he sells — in your case, there would be no way of guessing that you were paid to promote a company. But when it came out, it could shred your reputation. J.D., I think you dodged a bullet. More power to you for this impressive decision, and another reason I’ll turn to GRS (and any books you publish) above many other sources.
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I totally feel for you. It’s really easy to say what you would and wouldn’t do for money when it’s only a hypothetical. When they’re actually standing there with the check, well, it’s an awful lot harder.
It’s also easy for me to say I turned down a lot of money, because this happened almost a year ago, and everything has turned out fine. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.
I suspect this will not be the only opportunity like this that you will get. I wonder if there are other ways you could offer some sort of compromise. I also wonder if the company willing to pay you might have other ideas about how you could make some sort of partnership work so you don’t feel like you’re compromising your principles.
Good luck!
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Thanks JD.
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Advertisers have a clear and unmistakable bias and being paid to mask someone else’s bias as your own opinion without disclosing that is dishonest at best.
Frankly, had you taken the offer I would have stopped reading.
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Advertorials that aren’t disclosed are a slimy way of advertising and I attempt to distance myself with any type of publication that has them. The great thing about the web initially was that you could read average people’s opinions regarding goods and services. You knew they were telling the truth about a product and how it held up or if it was worth the purchase price. Now that business has gotten involved, you AGAIN have to second guess everything, just as you do when reading magazines/newspapers. Why can’t companies concentrate money spent on advertorials with creating compelling products that people willingly want to purchase?
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He sent a stack of books but no paper. I kept waiting for the material to arrive so I could type it up. I asked the middle man (mother in law) several times where the paper was but got no answer. It took quite a while for it to dawn on me that he expected me to write the paper, too.
I was raised with morals so high that… well, it took a long time for it to cross my mind that someone would even propose that I write a paper for them. And to think that it was an ADULT, a working person going back to college for a further degree, who proposed this – I was disillusioned by the world a little bit. Especially since (irony coming) he was getting a degree required to become a guidance counselor.
Since I had accepted the assignment so long ago and it was near the date due, and since I was confused about whether I should have known what he implied with his offer (but now I believe that man just operated in a circle with lesser values than my own), I went ahead and grudgingly wrote the paper, vowing that it was the first and last time I’d ever do that for anyone. I made a point of doing a very mediocre job, as my passive-aggressive way of taking out on him the fact that he had rooked me into something I did not understand that was immoral, to boot. Of course, I could have said no upon realizing the terms, and possibly today as a more mature person I might do that. But as a young person living under my mother-in-law’s roof, I just held my nose and did it.
I heard back later that he was pleased and got a B on the paper. This was an eye-opener for me that the adults out there I assumed all had high moral standards don’t necessarily all share the values I was brought up to believe in.
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JD, I am convinced that there is currently a bubble going on in the financial blogosphere where a number of bloggers are trading their reputations, page rank etc… for easy money by advertising for payday loans, ambulance chasers and the like. In my view this is unethical when they are simultaneously posing as promoting frugal, sustainable habits.
Perhaps I’m naive in thinking that, in the end of the day, good and honest writing and advice will win out.
Also, when you are given a book or product to review, and disclose that you did not pay for it and did not make a deal to only talk about positive things, I think that’s all fine.
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It’s completely different from getting a free book. That is a standard practice in every industry. Movie critics, theater critics, book reviewers – none of them pay for the products they review. As consumers, we know this and we understand that’s how it works – and has always worked. (As an aside, I think that if theater critics had to pay the $100-200 for a broadway show that the rest of us do, they might be a bit more judicious with their praise of some shows.)
But advertorials are an entirely different thing – there is no way that being paid a truckload of money to review a product would not affect your objectivity. Even if it didn’t, there would be no way for your readers to know whether they could trust your opinion. There would always be some doubt in their minds, because of the money. Once that lack of trust gets into their minds, it can’t just be segregated by putting a black box around the paid posts and labeling them “advertorials”. You made the right decision – no question.
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And that’s why I follow your blog.
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I think there are a few other issues, however, worth considering. One of them namely is what your circumstances are. Let’s say you had five kids and one of them needed surgery and you were struggling under the weight of the cost. Would that influence your decision? Would it be wrong to take that money when you clearly have an obligation to your family?
I think it isn’t often as simple as saying, “That goes against my values.” In life we are presented with gray situations where one choice is not necessarily wrong, and you are forced to prioritize your values. In your case, you obviously didn’t NEED the money, it was more a question of how badly you WANTED it, so it was really a choice of personal comfort.
But what if you really NEEDED the money for something like health care or extreme life circumstances? Of course, I hope it never comes to that. But in a harsh economic climate like this one, many people are forced into this exact dilemma as they are laid off, lose their health care plans and their pensions, and suddenly find themselves unable to take care of not just themselves but their loved ones as well. And then the real question is, can we blame people for sacrificing some of their values to uphold others?
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I think you did the right thing. You were clearly uncomfortable with the offer of there wouldn’t have been so much thought. I think you were kind of in a lose lose situation since either way you were going to wonder if you did the right thing. So better to go with your morals in that case.
I don’t know how much I would sell out for. Way less than a million. WAY less. But I don’t have nearly as much at stake as you.
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Here’s what I do… On my personal blog, I don’t accept paid posts or even reviews because it goes against my advertising contract with BlogHer. But I do accept straight advertising revenue. I have another blog, which is a review blog. I do indeed have paid posts and reviews… But my one stipulation is that I post what I actually think. So – if the person is buying a positive review, I decline. If I can say what I really think, then I do it. If I had been placed in your position – on my review blog since it would have been an automatic no on my personal blog – I would have been inclined to say yes, if and only if, I really liked the product genuinely. If not – or I was only ho-hum, I too, would have had to decline. I don’t make broad strokes, I do take it on a case by case basis. But if I get that “feeling” I have to decline – it’s a personal integrity issue.
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JD, your blog is more akin to a news site than a lot of other blogs. If it wasn’t, you’d soon run out of material and the posts would get stale. I think this news angle is one of your greatest strengths and a reduction in impartiality would definitely harm your equity, since impartiality is implicit in the journalistic approach.
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