The Boston Globe looks at marketing firms and the bloggers that get hired by them.

Yes, corporate America has discovered the blog and found that the grass-roots medium for supposedly unadulterated opinions is also a powerful marketing tool in a country where about 37 million Americans read these online journals. Even the state of Pennsylvania has joined in, offering free vacations to people who blog on its tourism site.

The blog, in many ways, is the perfect marketing tool: original, personal, and cheap. It has grown popular as advertisers find it harder to capture consumers’ attention in a fragmented media market that is making traditional television and newspaper advertising less effective. But despite their foray into advertising, blogs remain an unregulated forum.

With a growing number of businesses using blogs to help promote their products, sometimes in ways that are not very transparent, it is increasingly difficult to discern who or what is behind a blogger’s pitch, be it for a museum exhibit or flower company.

To disclose or not to disclose?

Forrester Research Inc. reported last month that 64 percent of marketers surveyed are interested in advertising in blogs, the highest percentage compared with other emerging interactive channels, such as instant messaging or video on demand.

Marketers say that bloggers are viewed as opinion influencers and trendsetters and that getting them to write about a product or service is an effective way to spread the word. The blogosphere also offers access to a key demographic: young people. According to Forrester, young adults between ages 18 and 24 make up one-quarter of all adult bloggers.

Blogging isn’t regulated so practises don’t have to be ethical.
Codes of ethics have been proposed, but they aren’t enforceable.

This company has about 2 thousand bloggers on it’s payroll.

For now, self-regulation rules. ”We try to be as ethical as possible,” said Ed Shull, chief executive at USWeb, the ad agency that pays bloggers to post about Dot Flowers and other companies.

”In our opinion, paying bloggers is no different than Tiger Woods getting money to wear the Nike logo.”

The logic is, we try, but - if bloggers don’t, tough.
And no, it is not like Tiger Woods getting money to wear the Nike logo.

via The Blog Herald