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What “sponsored conversations” can mean for movie studios

I’ve been following the “sponsored conversations” discussion quite fervently the last few days. The kerfluffle was started, this time, by a Forrester Research report that said sponsored conversations were here to stay and can be a smart tool for some marketers to pull out of their belts. As Mack points out, we’re still hashing out what the rules are so it’s a bit presumptuous to call anything “bad” or “good” (though I’ve certainly done just that on occassion) but there are certainly some ethical lines that marketers need to be aware of at the very least.

Since so much of the discussion about this topic has been academic and etheral, let’s try to narrow it here to look at the various tactics a movie studio could engage in that could, because of the loose existing definitions being used, be considered as sponsoring a blog post. The question of whether or not studios should engage in this practice was raised by Movie Marketing PR and so I thought I would answer it as best as I could.

Flat out paying for a post: Under this scenario Movie Studio A contacts Blogger B and says they would like to pay them $500 for 10 blog posts about an upcoming movie. I think, while there are few hard and fast rules, that all of us in the social media marketing world would say this is a bad thing. This would assume the post should be something like “I just heard about the best movie” or something where the relationship between the two is undisclosed and meant to appear organic.
Sponsoring a post: This is a little more nebulous. Under this scenario a particular post could be “Brought to you by…” Movie Studio A in a format that’s not a traditional ad but instead a message at the top or bottom of the post. To use an example others have, this would be akin to a radio host reading a commercial in his own voice during a broadcast. It’s clear this is paid for and separate from editorial but still brings with it the writer’s credibility to a large extent. This would still run afoul of Google’s understandibly hard line about such things unless the recommended “no follow” tag were added to the link so search rank would not be affected. So it’s a mixed bag.
Buying distinct advertising space within the post: This takes the whole advertising/editorial blurring out of the picture since we’re talking here about a banner or other very clear ad being displayed. Many blogs do this, insert an ad within their posts and no one seems to have a problem with it.
Flying out a blogger for a set visit: Now here’s where things start to get tricky. The blogger is certainly going to write something about the visit just like any journalist would. That post is likely to be positive because, hey, who isn’t going to geek out on a movie set. And that post is likely to contain a link of some sort to an official site. So monetary value has traded hands, even if money hasn’t. Is this wrong? No. It’s influencer outreach and good publicity, as well as an opportunity for the blogger to make their coverage of the movie better.
Sending promotional swag or DVDs to review: Again, there’s nothing going on here that isn’t going on in the traditional media space. As long as the blogger makes it clear that these things were sent to them the readers can make their own call as to how seriously to consider the reviews/write-ups. The best programs don’t require any coverage but do ask for disclosure if there is some coverage given. You’re again dealing with a situation where monetary value has been exchanged but there isn’t money changing hands.

I think the problem is that you can’t have a “sponsored conversations” discussion without going down a path where you need to consider all sorts of levels of what might qualify for that heading. It’s not as actually cut-and-dried (except for #1, I think) as some might imagine it to be. The problem with the Forrester report is that it doesn’t go deeply enough into all these options for them to be fully considered.