Advertising by Brands or Honest Article?

[VHunter]

Have you ever read an "article" in a magazine, and wondered if it was actually "paid for advertising" by the company it was in regards to?

I recently read such an "article", and because I know more of the story outside of the article.... it leads me to wonder if it's the "genuine article" (pardon my pun).

Meaning:
A-) Did the company/brand/product create the 'article' for advertising
OR
B-) Did the writer/magazine do the actual story and simply fail to do a thorough research before making this company/brand/product look like such a gem?

Because, for me, it makes me ask these questions:
If the answer is
A) and this is an Industry magazine, why would they want to mislead their readers with such an article that will obviously be decidedly biased in favour of the company since it's "paid" for, and is leading technicians down a path they may not want to be but just don't know it yet
OR
B) if this is a genuine article, why wouldn't the writer/magazine not do their research more thoroughly to present the full picture to their readers, so as to be sure not to mislead/misinform them.......


If the magazine's goal is to strengthen the Industry, then this "article" should either never have gone to print OR should have had a LOT more info in it to give the FULL picture of this 'brand'.

 

[VHunter]

I'm not sure why this was moved to chit-chat.
It is nail related as it's about a nail enhancement product 'article' in a nail industry magazine. Guess I should have specified.

Any thoughts, anyone, on these questions? (in the above post).

 

[VHunter]

Is no one concerned about the reliability and/or validity of "articles" found in industry magazines meant to inform us, and help us make informed choices?

 

[min11]

I think for me its more that I don't quite understand as I dont know what the article was about or getting at that you are speaking of.

Sorry Victoria, maybe I'm just being dippy again :hug:

 

[1999judy]

I think articles are made by the mags hun....advertising is paid for seperately.
It's a bit cryptic so not sure what you mean x

 

[Lynne Baker]

In the UK you will often find articles categorised as "promotion" so you know that they're marketing rather than editorial. That said I have it on good authority from a very well known writer (India Knight) that it used to be common practice to say that the cover model was wearing x brand of cosmetic, where x was the highest paying advertiser in the magazine that month, whether she was wearing x,y, or z brand.
Call me cynical but I'm pretty sceptical about a beauty editor's view of a product. I'd rather try it out myself, or trust a "real" person's assessment of it.

 

[VHunter]

I can't really name the magazine, nor the article because it might be considered inflammatory or slander or whatever; do you know what I mean?
But I do know for fact that some of the information stated in the article is misleading, some of it even false. AND that there is a great deal left unsaid. Because there is much left unsaid, techs are swayed a direction that had the full picture with ALL the information; they might never consider using such a product.

It's not labelled as advertising, nor is it an article by the editor.

It's presumably written by a journalist.

The article in question simply labelled as a profile of the product.

I do know the difference between what should be 'true' articles, and what is paid for advertising.

BUT is it possible that some forms of advertising, created by the company are presented to look like a true 'article'?

A company does an ad campaign and creates all sorts of publicity. They might create a blurb, or a leaflet OR maybe they create a one or two page article that looks like the real deal BUT is in fact advertising written by their own publicity department. After all, they paid for the space. Can they not put there what they want?


So, back to my original question:

If the answer is
A) and this is an Industry magazine, why would they want to mislead their readers with such an article that will obviously be decidedly biased in favour of the company since it's "paid" for, and is leading technicians down a path they may not want to be but just don't know it yet
OR
B) if this is a genuine article, why wouldn't the writer/magazine not do their research more thoroughly to present the full picture to their readers, so as to be sure not to mislead/misinform them.......

I, personally, would like to be able to depend upon industry magazines to keep me abreast of the 'truth' in the industry, in terms of the products.
Having read this article, I don't know how much I can trust the magazine now.

 

[Lynne Baker]

Have you approached the magazine in question to air your concerns?

 

[VHunter]

I'm thinking on it.
I just wanted some feedback regarding this issue before I did so, and wanted to know other geek's thoughts on it.

 

[nailzoo]

many companies pay for their own write up's, it's often part of the advertising deal " you pay for 3 adds and we will give you editorial".It's the way things are done.

We (in AUS) have writeups like that in the papers too .... but somewhere at the top it has to have the words "advertisement".

Just like on latenight television before thay start all that crapolla they have to state "this is a paid advertisement by the crap artists trying to sell you this shyte".

 

[Bev Rose]

If the 'piece' you mention has words like...
'Advertorial'
'Promotion'
'Advertisement'
All of these would be an paid for advert from the company - these words should appear written along the top borderline of the piece.

Some publishers will do an 'Advertising Feature' promotion on certain companies with assisted advertising costs from the Company they are writing about, plus any of the Company's suppliers buying a advert alongside the editorial, this is again, basically a paid for editorial.

For a journalist to write an independent editorial piece about a certain product or company, without being asked & paid for by the said Company, it should be realistic and correctly investigated to give the true facts - however, when does any journalist look a true facts?!

I'd be inclined to take it up with the publisher/Editor of the magazine and find out exactly what it is trying to represent. If it does end up as a 'Paid for Editorial', then it was obviously written by the marketing department of the Company - or at least 'proofed' out to them before publication. Which means it's not probably, the true thoughts of the editorial department of the said magazine.

Did that make any sense?

 

[VHunter]

Yup, understood :green:

Ok, so, if the magazine doesn't have any of the below anywhere on it:

If the 'piece' you mention has words like...
'Advertorial'
'Promotion'
'Advertisement'

Then my question is, what do YOU guys think about such an article that lacks a great deal of information about the brand and some very pertinent truths?? Should the magazine be 'responsible' OR is only the writer at fault.
Keeping in mind, it's not a gossip mag about hollywood stars; it's an Industry magazine with an article that promotes a product to us...

 

[The Geek]

Although this varies from mag to mag, the sad reality is that in trade publications, you will seldom find any real critical 'journalistic' reviews of a company or product. Trade publications have minimal revenue generated from subscriptions and as such, need to rely on ad revenue. This makes their customer the company that advertises with them. In a small industry, that also means that editors need to be very careful about how they are portraying their customers (the advertisers).

Product and/or company reviews are frequently written by the company themselves. This helps to ensure accuracy, but at the cost of... well... objectivity

This is also why you have a tendency to see little or no write ups of a company that doesn't advertise with the magazine.

 

[VHunter]

Although this varies from mag to mag, the sad reality is that in trade publications, you will seldom find any real critical 'journalistic' reviews of a company or product. Trade publications have minimal revenue generated from subscriptions and as such, need to rely on ad revenue. This makes their customer the company that advertises with them. In a small industry, that also means that editors need to be very careful about how they are portraying their customers (the advertisers).

Product and/or company reviews are frequently written by the company themselves. This helps to ensure accuracy, but at the cost of... well... objectivity

This is also why you have a tendency to see little or no write ups of a company that doesn't advertise with the magazine.

Ok, I understand that, and to be honest.. expected it.

BUT shouldn't they have the responsibility to be truthful and choose NOT to do the article/publicity if it goes against their objective (which I assume is improvement of the industry and educating us, the techs).
I know that here and on another forum, faulty or misleading or untruthful information about a method or product is not tolerated.

Shouldn't it be the same for the magazines?
OR
Shouldn't we be able to expect the same from them?
OR
Do we? or am I the only one?

 

[The Geek]

Sure, but that isn't their objective nor is this isolated to trade publications. Magazines objectives are to sell advertising space and you can't do that very well if you criticise your customers (ad space buyers). Consumer Magazines are pretty much the same.

Though every magazine is different in their execution, the bottom line is that they are not newspapers

 

[VHunter]

So, I guess basically; we've all been spoiled rotten by the Geek site in the sense that we KNOW we'll find the truth here and all the information.

And so, we must always read articles in Industry mags with a grain of salt and there's no point in me sending a letter and I can just hope that the techs that read the article stop to do some research....

Ugh... a bit disheartening...

Yup, I've been spoiled by Geek

:lol: