Babies vs. Brands: why the influencer business model is at risk
This is a June 2019 revision to the report and analysis of the quantitative research completed in May 2017. The revision focuses the theory used, arguing that social media influencers are cultural intermediaries. The variables I used to evaluate 300 Canadian mommy blogs — such as using the product and giving a personal opinion — align with the role and function of the cultural intermediary. However, if the influencer’s business model is based on commodifying the audience, initially attracted to the content because of authenticity, the business model is inherently at risk when the influencer forfeits authenticity in exchange for paid, branded content; as my research revealed. As such, an influencer’s status as cultural intermediary is also in jeopardy.
NOTE: I tried to get this published but was told it needed to be written more ‘academically’. I objected. A paper about authenticity ought to be written with an authentic voice.
By Donna J. Lindell, MPR, Professor Public Relations, Centennial College
Abstract
Bloggers who write about parenting are charging public relations firms and the brands they represent upwards of $2,000 per blog post to write favourable product reviews. But before blogs were income generators, they were used by women to share common experiences around motherhood, creating a community of like-minded individuals built on trust and authenticity. Now, these bloggers play the role of cultural intermediaries, participants in the marketing of products that they also consume, able to influence sales with their reach to the mom-market. However, their business model and ability to continue selling their audience as a commodity may be in jeopardy: audience trust in bloggers is on the decline compared to any other information source about brands; new, albeit vague, regulations (not laws) require the blogger to disclose any commercial relationship; and qualitative studies reveal audience negative opinion of the takeover of commercial content and resulting loss of sense of community. Using determinants of authenticity as a measure of a blogger’s ability to maintain her audience with a personal narrative, a quantitative content analysis of 290 blog posts published by 30 of the top mommy bloggers in Canada was used to demonstrate with correlations that paid content is threatening authenticity and that a blogger’s legitimacy as an influencer is being weakened by commercial content.
Keywords: Blogs, Blogging, Mommy bloggers, Brand, Paid influencers, Cultural intermediaries, Authenticity, Credibility, Audience-as-commodity, Public relations, Paid media
Over the past several years, public relations agencies and brands have shifted their practices to include paid media, generating exposure for clients by paying bloggers, or influencers, to write positive content on their social media channels. Mommy bloggers, the focus of this research, initially started writing online journals as a way to belong and contribute to a community with a shared interest, parenthood; to share, commiserate and learn from each other. But now, they are businesses with legions of followers and as such demand upwards of $2,000 per post to write positive brand reviews; payment in exchange for their ability to reach the mom-market and influence sales on products they or their family use. But their business model may be in jeopardy: audience trust in bloggers is on the decline compared to any other information source about brands (Environics Communications, 2017); new, albeit vague, regulations (not laws) require the blogger to disclose any commercial relationship; and qualitative studies reveal their audience does not like how the takeover of commercial content has threatened the blog’s sense of community (Hunter, 2016). These realities create an opportunity to empirically answer: What happens to a blogger’s narrative when a commercial relationship is present? Can the promotion of brands and the stories of babies coexist?
To answer, Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984) cultural intermediary qualifications were used as the foundation of an exploratory quantitative content analysis of the top 30 mommy blogs in Canada to determine the linear association between disclosure and brand mentions to authenticity. Authenticity is why audiences were presumably first attracted to the blog as they looked for a community of shared experiences. My ontological assumption is pragmatic: without authenticity, the blogger loses credibility, and without that, her business model crumbles since the model is based on selling the audience-as-commodity, as theorized by Dallas Smythe (2001). In the context of the evolving public relations practice that now includes paid as well as earned media strategies, my research provides Canadian empirical data intended for public relations practitioners, policymakers, bloggers, public relations professors and blog readers, offering exploratory insights for all into the growing paid influencer market and the consequences on the industry, the audience and the consumer. As a researcher, I am am also a mother, one who had her own blog from 2005 to 2010 that did not accept any ads or include any product promotion or payment. At the time, it was anathema to everything I had practiced as a seasoned public relations professional, that attention for your client is earned, through relationships built with journalists.
Literature Review
Blogs are online journals with “a strong sense of the author’s personality, passions and points of view” (Lopez, 2009, p. 734; see also Xifra & Huertas, 2008). The act of blogging was made possible with free self-publishing tools such as Blogger and WordPress that emerged out of Web 2.0, coming of age between 2003 and 2013, coincidentally around the same period many career-women were choosing to ‘opt-out’ of the workplace (Kupenberg & Stone, 2008; Warner, 2015) to stay home and raise their children. The technology gave women a vehicle to have a published voice. Women initially used blog technology to share stories about motherhood over the Internet, resulting in virtual communities of like-minded followers with emotional connections and bonds of trust and support (Blanchard, 2006; Lopez, 2009; Morrison, 2011; Wu, 2016). By connecting through shared experiences, frustrations and interests — by being relatable — the audience develops a sense of trust that bloggers are being authentic (Grose, 2012; Hunter, 2016; Mendelsohn, 2010; Morton, 2018).
Through blogging, women found not only a community of like-minded, they also discovered that every Cheetos-smeared little finger, every visit to Disneyland, every successful dinner served gave them the power and ability to become influential cultural intermediaries, a term coined by Bourdieu (1984) well before the digital age, and defined as those who “sell themselves as models or guarantors of the value of their products” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 365). A mom’s recommendation for a diaper cream or a new snack not only translates into what is considered on-trend, but into real sales for the brand. Cultural intermediaries have several defining attributes, one of which is they are part of a new economy that depends on the production of needs of consumers, telling people they need something they didn’t know they needed. By blogging, women were also creating “mommies as consumers” (Lopez, 2009, p. 739), who through their blogs, initially attracted advertisers (Mendelsohn, 2010; Rubin, 2012) wanting access to the world’s largest target market: moms (Foshee, 2010) with tremendous spending power as the Chief Financial Officer of nearly every household, controlling upwards of 80 per cent of household spending (Female Factor, 2016). “Today’s women dominate social media, influencing the purchasing, voting, health care and lifestyle choices of North American women” (Rubin, 2012, n.p.) and brands know this. Another attribute of cultural intermediaries is they are considered ‘taste makers’ (Bourdieu, 1984), in that they fit products to a consumer’s tastes and vice versa. As consumers, mommy bloggers are also participants in the marketing of a brand (Lefebvre, 2007), able to endorse products relevant to their lives.
Cultural intermediaries also have expertise and legitimacy (Smith Maguire, 2014) based on the social standing or professionalization of their occupation (Bourdieu, 1984). Arguably, there is no such thing a professional mom but bloggers have been afforded legitimacy by classifying themselves as social media influencers; specifically, and for this research, the occupation is that of mommy blogger. (It should be noted, the business of blogging about parenthood does not exclusively belong to the ‘mommy’, though that is the most-used term for this category of blogging. Dads also blog about parenthood, but are far outnumbered by women). The most successful mommy bloggers attract a large following of audience/consumers with the quality of their narrative (Van Dijck, 2013) and can claim the title of social media influencer. These women have been able to successfully capitalize on their own private life, turning images of their children and witty stories of their shenanigans into a reliable income. It is this authentic sharing that puts mommy bloggers in a unique category of social media influencer. Mommy bloggers should not — in the majority of instances — be classified in the same stratosphere as celebrity influencers such as the Khardashians. Mommy bloggers analyzed for the purposes of this research are micro influencers (maximum 172,348 Unique Visitors Per Month) and authenticity is their currency as they have attracted and grown their audience based on shared experiences and a sense of community centred around motherhood and parenting.
A cultural intermediary also has expertise and legitimacy because of the field in which they operate (Bourdieu, 1984). The field for the mommy blogger is parenting, and by nature of having kids and being able to write about it, mommy bloggers have been afforded expertise. Indeed, today’s parenting experts are not those found on a book shelf with a doctor title, but the moms and dads “who have built a massive collection of knowledge on raising children and made it available in a virtual space” (Stansberry, 2011, p. 11). “Mothers often prefer the wart-and-all experiences of other mothers online — and the ability to discuss them interactively — to the dry, inflexible pronouncements spouted by experts in books and parenting magazines” (Mendelsohn, 2010, n.p.). Bourdieu asserts that the cultural intermediaries “are taste makers and legitimation authorities because of their personal investment in the work” (Smith Maguire, 2014, p. 22), which gives them cultural capital. If you’re a mother, nothing personally invests you more than taking care of a little human that you created. The balance between the personal (the mommy) and the professional (the content generator and audience-attractor) “generates a sincere disposition, which is fundamental to the effectiveness of the new occupations’ symbolic and ethical implications …In short, they sell well because they believe in what they sell” (Smith Maguire, p. 22–23; Bourdieu, 365). It is this sincerity that makes them authentic.
The unique combination of authenticity, influence and access attracts brands and is the reason bloggers deserve to be paid to promote (Ehm, 2015; Morton, 2018; Wu, 2016). Herein is the basis of their business model: a blogger’s audience of followers is sold to brands as a commodity, a phenomenon explored by Sanoval and Fuchs (2010) and Fisher (2015) who applied this social media practice to the audience labour theory of Dallas Smythe (2001). “Because the audience power is produced, sold, purchased and consumed, it commands a price, and is a commodity” (Smythe, 2001, p. 256). The role of the audience is the cornerstone of digital word-of-mouth (Lefebvre, 2007), especially when 90 per cent of Canadian moms rely on referrals from family and friends they trust when making purchasing decisions (Lytle, 2013). As their influence and ability to sell product grows with their followers, these women are no longer satisfied with the payback of free goods or Google ad revenue, they want to be paid for their influence and social capital. They want brands to pay them commensurate with their influence, measured by the size of their audience (number of followers) and their ability to create sharable, likable content beyond those followers.
Economically, it is not known how large the social media influencer market is in Canada, but in 2017, it was estimated at up to $1 billion per year (Roumeliotis, 2017). Though not all bloggers post rate cards and many use different methods to determine rate, anecdotally, in May 2017, mommy bloggers specifically charged between $20 to $2000 for one blog post, with an average of $500 per post. However, an article posted in January 2018 reports some influencers are now starting at $2,500 per social media or blog post, with one blogger from British Columbia, Canada earning between $15,000 to $20,000 per post (Morton, 2018). Influencers are typically divided into categories of pay based on their followers: with micro influencers (fewer than 10,000 followers) making hundreds of dollars per post to macro influencers (100,000 plus followers) making hundreds of thousands of dollars per post. It should be noted that solo blog post asks seem to be tapering off, as they are now being sold as part of a larger social media partnership package that might include Instagram posts, Pinterest, and YouTube. In the 2016 Global Communications Report (USC Centre for Public Relations and The Holmes Report, 2016), public relations agency leaders predicted their industry will grow a generous 33 per cent by 2021, in part because “the emphasis on earned media is shifting to owned, shared and paid. PR needs to learn to leverage paid media because that’s where the business is headed and the competition is already there” (p. 5). The public relations industry is willing to pay because it wants access to this prime audience of mothers.
Regulators also acknowledge that “authentic consumer reviews on digital platforms benefit both consumers and business, providing a wealth of unbiased product information to help consumers make informed decisions, and rewarding businesses that provide a superior product or service” (Competition Bureau, 2015, p. 10). As such, astroturfing regulations are in place, but it is unclear if this regulation applies to paying bloggers: Are brands paying for access to audience as they would an ad or are they paying for a positive and potentially ‘fake’ review? Astroturfing is aimed to protect consumers from glowing reviews from people who have never used the product, or were paid to write the reviews; “unchecked, it will seriously erode consumer confidence in the authenticity of online reviews, at a cost to both consumers and business” (Competition Bureau, 2015, p. 10). As one blogger put it: “Bad info and continued lies calls your credibility into doubt, which makes your blog a lot less worth reading” (Perlmutter & Schoen, 2007, p. 46). Ehm (2015) insists, “bloggers are only as good as their credibility — so much is based on word of mouth these days, both online and offline, that without a positive reputation, influencers can kill their own businesses” (p. 9).
To address the growing influencer business, guidelines by Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) came into effect in 2017 requiring influencers to fully disclose any commercial partnership, but the ASC is an industry-operated self-regulating body with no legal authority to enforce the regulations. Right now, if the ASC receives a complaint from a consumer about non-disclosure, the writer is asked to update their post or take it down. If they don’t, it is considered fraud and the complaint goes to the Competion Bureau. As of January 2018, there have been no referrals (Morton, 2018). In addition, the Competition Bureau now has a Consumer Alert initiative to help protect consumers and brands from misleading advertising (Morton, 2018). There is very little academic research with respect to the requirements around disclosure in Canada.
That said, the ethical exploration of disclosure of commercial interests presents in research in other jurisdictions, but not in Canada. In the U.S., Jensen’s (2011) research titled “Blogola, sponsored posts and the ethics of blogging” describes the new practice of taking money for content with the advice to follow the Federal Trade Commission rules for disclosure or face a U.S. $11,000 fine per blog post (that fine is now U.S. $16,000). In Australia, Archer, Pettigrew and Harrigan (2014) specifically look at ‘mum bloggers’ with an online survey of Australian mum bloggers, analyzing responses of 238 bloggers; 68 per cent reported they believed there were no ethical issues to blogging, but of those who said there were, sponsored posts and disclosure was listed as the primarly concern. In Canada, there is no such research.
During the relatively short time since mommy bloggers began cashing in, very little research has been conducted on the impact of audience. The most relevant qualitative Canadian study to explore the audience commodity in this context is “Monetizing the mommy: Mommy blogs and the audience commodity” (Hunter, 2016). Findings revealed:
bloggers are increasingly creating content aimed at selling products, rather than telling authentic stories. Participants are particularly disturbed by sponsored posts, accusing bloggers of crafting their stories to fit the product for sale, or the wishes of the sponsor, rather than simply telling stories for the sake of sharing. (Hunter, 2016, p. 1312)
These findings are consistent with concerns expressed by Lopez (2009), Mendelsohn (2010), Smith (2010), and contemporary media articles (e.g.: Ronan, 2015; Wu, 2016). Participants in Hunter’s (2016) study regarded blogs with commercial content as “morphing into performances… disingenuous and exploitive” (p. 1318). In exchange for money and the audience commodification, the sense of community is lost, Hunter (2016) concludes, “at the expense of telling honest, authentic, intimate stories” (p. 1318). Jensen (2011) recommends that all posts be the author’s authentic opinion, not “overly influenced by the compensation that was provided” (p. 227), and that motives and any financial consideration be disclosed. These studies and remarks offer qualitative insight into audience sentiment towards commercially-driven blog posts. My research aims to empirically address this concern.
The theoretical frameworks of cultural intermediaries (Bourdieu, 1984) and audience commodity (Smythe, 2001), as described above, both apply to the mommy blogger phenomenon and were used to develop the variables for this research. For example, cultural intermediaries require “a degree of authority — their constructed meanings and personal lifestyles must carry credibility if they are to be taken up by others” (Smith Maguire, 2014, p. 20). It’s hard to promote a baby product, if you don’t have a baby; it’s hard to legitimately endorse a product if you haven’t actually used it. They must write with a “perfect sincerity which is essential in order to be believed and therefore effective” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 578). With respect to audience-as- commodity, several studies (e.g.: Ismail & Latif, 2013; Jensen, 2011; Li & Suh, 2015; Rieh et al; 2014; Yang & Lim, 2009) look at determinants of credibility, including transparency, relatable content worthy of sharing and interactivity between the blogger and her audience; factors why a follower is likely to return, or share the content to help broaden the blogger’s reach. And, as mentioned, the more followers, the more audience they can commodify, the more pay they can demand.
Research Objective
To empirically evaluate the relationship between disclosure and the existence of paid branded content to the authenticity of the author’s narrative on parenting through the identification, tabulation, and quantitative analysis of elements of both authentic content and branded content.
Research Questions
The overarching research question: What happens to a blogger’s narrative when a commercial relationship is present? Sub-questions:
RQ1: Are the elements of disclosure and brand being identified by bloggers, and how are they being identified?
RQ2: How are the elements of authenticity impacted when disclosure of commercial interest and discussion of brand are present in a blog’s narrative?
Methodology and Method
An exploratory quantitative content analysis of 30 of the top mommy blogs in Canada was used to determine the linear association between disclosure and brand mentions to elements that demonstrate authenticity. Quantitative content analysis is defined as “a research technique for the systematic, objective, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” (Berleson, 1952, p. 18; see also Baran, 2002). While qualitative research (Hunter, 2016) of audience sentiment identified authenticity is being lost at the expense of branded content; my research uses quantitative methods to verify the conclusions with objective research, necessary to get the attention of industry and policymakers, and missing in my opinion, in the emergent and controversial matter of paid content. This research is designed to build a better case for review of a business model that promises authenticity as the means to influence, in exchange for pay. At this point, my research presents as exploratory until further statistical models can be employed for additional validity. I am confident, however, that the presented quantitative results accurately reflect what I observed as a reader of mommy blogs, during the coding and analysis of the data, using my extensive experience as a PR practitioner, and perhaps more relevant, my experience as a mother of two boys. Approval by an ethical review board was not required because all posts are public.
Sample and Sampling Procedures
The sample for analysis was 30 of the top English-language mommy bloggers in Canada, based on the highest number of Unique Visitors Per Month (UVPM), excluding French-language, aggregate sites and/or sites that did not have content between December 2016 and May 2017. The list was generated from Cision’s database of social media influencers. Considered the world’s largest media database company, Cision classifies a list of 1,300 as mommy bloggers (population) in Canada, determined as bloggers who write lifestyle and product content related to parenthood. The unit of analysis was a blog post entry and the analysis included the first 10 blog posts on the home page of the site as seen during the data collection period, with the exception of two bloggers; in these cases, five blog posts were evaluated. Of the 290 public blogs analyzed, three were written by men, and were included.
Data Collection and Analysis
Two coders were trained and agreed upon the coding criteria to achieve an inter-coder reliability of .97 on a portion of the sample (five blog posts of eight bloggers). Data collection took place between April 11, 2017 and May 5, 2017. For the data collection, 18 variables were coded for each blog post based on the categories of commercial intent, authenticity and cultural intermediary status and audience-as-commodity; all derived from literature.
Variables for commercial intent included disclosure presence, placement and prominence. Measures of commercial content included brand presence, and volume of brand mentions in both text and images.
Variables used to measure authentic voice included mention of their own children, description of life events, inclusion of personal photographs, and volume of personal pronouns. These variables were based on elements of authenticity found in literature reporting why women blog: by connecting through shared experiences, frustrations and interests (e.g.: Zappavigna, 2013). Using these variables would demonstrate the absence or alteration of “the gritty, banal details of their lives” (Hunter, 2016, p. 1318), to evaluate if a blogger is describing the product with a personal narrative or speaking the voice of the brand. Qualitatively this tone was observed as well, documented in a separate column with the numerical variables. Personal opinion of product/service, and clear indication the blogger actually used the product were coded. All of these elements are measures of both authenticity and a blogger’s ability to claim influence as a cultural intermediary. “They are tastemakers and legitimation authorities because of their personal investment in their work” (Smith Maguire, 2014, p. 22). The aim was to quantitatively assess: can I relate to the content because it uses a personal story of you and your kids? Is it useful to my own lifestyle? Did you write it with you own opinion and own distinct voice?
To evaluate the bloggers ability to sell her audience as a commodity, measures included number of comments and shares, and blogger engagement with comments. These are based on variables identified as elements of credibility (the cornerstone of their business model), including content that is deemed worthy of sharing (Ismail & Latif, 2013) and high levels of interactivity between the blogger and her audience (Li & Suh, 2015; Yang & Lim, 2009). The presence of contests was an additional measure of engagement.
Qualitative observations as well as exact disclosure wording were documented. These observations included tone of content, including content that read more like advertising copy than personal testimony; and content that promoted the blogger’s personal business (one blogger promoted her line of essential oils, for example). The primary researcher has more than 25 years of industry experience as a public relations professional to qualitatively identify content written by a hired agency compared to content written exclusively by the author.
The analysis used inferential statistical calculations applying the Pearson correlation coefficient (bivariate) to measure the strength of the relationship between variables: a small-strength association is 0.1 to 0.3; medium is 0.3 to 0.5 and large is 0.5 to 1.0. Descriptive statistics determined trends based on the sample.
Findings (see Tables 1–2)
Correlations of variables demonstrate that paid content is threatening authenticity, that a blogger’s credibility is tenuous when promoting a brand without the presence of contests, and that a blogger’s legitimacy as an influencer/cultural intermediary is being weakened by commercial content. Qualitiative observations based on tone of content as well as descriptive statistics support these findings.
RQ1: Are the elements of disclosure and brand being identified by bloggers, and how are they being identified?
Bloggers who disclose, do so prominently. However, fewer than half (43.0%) of the sample disclosed; of those, 41.0% of disclosure is buried and 85.8% of the disclosure is at the bottom of the blog post. This calls into question the efficacy and application of the new guidelines by Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) requiring bloggers to fully disclose any commercial partnership. Without constant monitoring, they are hard to enforce and lack any real consequence (a blog post must be removed). Descriptive statistics are supported by a correlation (.284; p-value significant at 0.01 level) between disclosure and placement; and .791 (p-value 0.01) strong correlation between disclosure and prominence. In order to generate a higher correlation for placement, bloggers would need to disclose at the top of the blog post, before their audience reads ahead.
Readers have to read the full blog post to see the disclosure statement; many of which are ambiguous, leaving the reader to decipher the difference between ‘sponsored’, ‘brought to you by’, and ‘ambassador’, for example. Some bloggers did not disclose on the individual post, but instead included blanket disclosure statements in a tab on the blog site, further suggesting that even though bloggers are disclosing, the audience is the last to know.
Exploring the variable of the mention/presence of a brand allowed an analysis of correlation between commercial interest (brand inclusion) and authenticity (personal stories). There is a strong correlation between disclosure and mention of brand at .521 (p-value significant at the 0.01 level) to reveal that disclosure is happening when a brand is discussed; though only 58.6% of the sample disclosed when a brand was mentioned and 72.9% of the sample mentioned a brand. Interestingly, there was a negative correlation (-.142; p-value at 0.05) between disclosure and a contact me feature (the contact me feature had to include an offer to accept payment from brands) suggesting that a blogger doesn’t have to actively promote themselves as a paid influencer on their own blog for payment to be offered. Arguably, to be authentic one needs to be transparent yet the data clearly shows that the directive to disclose is far from consistently applied and remains confusing for the audience: If a brand was mentioned, was it in fact paid, or was it a genuine unpaid endorsement? On sites where there was no disclosure but talk about a brand, it was unclear if it was a paid, undisclosed relationship, or an authentic endorsement. This is contrary to what Ehm (2015) argues, that “digital audiences are savvy — they assume the blogger is getting paid when they mention brands” (p. 11) and presents some additional challenges for policymakers to consider.
RQ2: How are the elements of authenticity impacted when disclosure of commercial interest and discussion of brand are present in a blog’s narrative?
Qualitatively, there was an obvious difference in tone and message when brands were mentioned that made it clear that discussion of brand and authenticity are not always mutually compatible. This was supported by the quantitative analysis to reveal authenticity is being compromised when brands are promoted. For example, when blogs were more authentic, more personal pronouns were used with stories of the author’s family; when brands were mentioned, third person references were made (any mother, children).
The negative impact on authentic narrative because of commercial interest presents when using the measure of talking about their own children. Stories such as the one about why a blogger’s son has to use a fidget spinner (a popular gadget to help children focus in class) make the blogger relatable, creating a sense of trust with the audience that the blogger is being authentic (Grose, 2012; Hunter, 2016; Mendelsohn, 2010). Yet, only half of the blogs analyzed (50.7%) mentioned their children; 49.3% did not, suggesting some blogs about motherhood are not necessarily related to motherhood at all. When variables of ‘mention brand’ and ‘mention kids’ were correlated, there was no statistically significant association suggesting that if a blogger is talking about brand, she is not talking about her kids. There is a very small (.139), but statistically significant (p-value at the 0.05 level) correlation between disclosure and the mention of children. These findings confirm the qualitative results of Hunter (2016) regarding the takeover of commercial content at the expense of personal stories. In the absence of using a shared narrative about the entertaining, humiliating or infuriating aspects of motherhood (Zappavigna, 2013), bloggers risk losing their connection to, and consequently their ability to commodify, their audience. Simply put, in the battle of brands versus babies: brands are winning.
By most measures, when correlating variables of commercial intent, either brand mentions or disclosure, with variables of elements of authenticity, there is only a slight or not statistically significant association. For example, both disclosure and brand with life events (no correlation); disclosure and brand with use of personal photos (no correlation). This suggests bloggers are not using personal stories when discussing brands. An example that best demonstrates how the brand is winning over the personal narrative is this:
If you’re hosting multiple parties, you can keep the festive colours looking new and radiant throughout the holiday season by using OxiClean™ Colour Shield Laundry Stain Remover. It helps to fight tough stains (think red wine and gravy) while safeguarding colours.
To make this example more authentic, it might have instead told a story about the author’s child spilling mommy’s precious red wine on the tablecloth that was being used for a holiday party and OxiClean came to the rescue. The passage is typical of many branded posts wherein the author’s real life was of little value — or mention — to the branded message.
In the sample, there were many instances of brand promotion overpowering the personal narrative. Two bloggers had exactly the same branded content, word-for-word, with the exception of the first paragraph, for example. One post stands out when this does not happen: the blogger disclosed that they received a free winter coat to review and then told the story of when they wore it, how warm it was and showed a picture of them wearing the jacket while playing with the kids. This blog contained all of the elements of an authentic post: personal story, mention of kids, personal photos, personal pronouns, tried the product, and gave personal opinion; all while disclosing. But these types of posts are rare. In fact, there is a negative but not statistically relevant correlation between the amount of personal pronouns to the amount of brand mentions; hinting that as brand mentions go up, personal narrative goes down. The fact that it is a negative, not positive, correlation is the real revelation. When correlating personal images (photos of the blogger’s children and/or blogger; no stock images) with the presence of brand images, there was a weak (.133) correlation (p-value significant at the 0.05 level). Only 29.8% of posts evaluated contained what were clearly personal photos. These weak or no correlations further suggest that, in the battle of brands versus babies, the brands are still winning.
Arguably a blogger would have to actually use the product in order to form an authentic and influential opinion. Real trial will generate and authentic and objective opinion, which is important for a reader to trust that opinion. This also speaks to the credibility of the source and their status as a cultural intermediary, which Bourdieu (1984) categorized as someone who can be a guarantor and a participant in the product they endorse. Findings suggest the legitimacy of the blogger as an influencer is present, but weak: 72.9% blogs in the sample mention brand, 58.7% had clearly used the product, and 63.2% expressed a personal opinion in their blog, which are numbers you would expect to be higher when promoting a product. There was a small (0.134; p-value significant at 0.05 level) correlation between disclosure and the variable of the author clearly used the product; and a stronger correlation (.225; p-value at 0.01 level) between ‘brand mention’ and ‘author used’. And while there may have been no doubt that one blogger who announced her pregnancy used the e.p.t. pregnancy test kit that sponsored her post, the fact a brand had infiltrated such a personal disclosure made it seem far less authentic. There is no correlation between either brand mention or disclosure on evidence of the author having a clear opinion on the brand, despite assurances in disclosure statements that ‘opinions are my own’.
Finally, findings relating to the ability of blogger to sell her audience as a commodity, even with disclosure and branded content, suggest credibility of mommy bloggers still exists, albeit at fairly low levels, and highly contingent on the presence of contests to incentivize the audience to engage. Of the blogs analyzed, 83.7% did not have any blogger engagement with reader comments. It is important to note the strong correlation (.570; p-value 0.01 level) between comments and the presence of contests; 22% of blogs evaluated contained contests for which readers must leave a comment (often after being instructed to first visit the brand’s website). A medium-strength association of .308 (p-value at 0.01) existed between brand mention and contests, suggesting contests are an important component to engage readers with branded content. If you exclude comments as a result of contests from the mix, there is no correlation, suggesting a blogger’s credibility is indeed harmed when branded content is disclosed.
All of these findings suggest that the answer to Wu’s (2016) question “whether or not mom blogging can retain its original roots … primarily about community and authenticity that coincidentally leads to economic and professional gains, or has the commodification of these blogs already robbed them of their authentic communal benefits?” (p. 49) is the latter: authenticity is being robbed. These findings offer a cautionary tale to the PR industry and bloggers: in the absence of authenticity, the audience that is being commodified may turn away and look for their community and content elsewhere, a danger raised by Ehm (2015) and Perlmutter and Schoen (2007).
Future Research
The use of inferential Pearson’s correlation coefficient offered insights suitable for exploratory research. Additional statistical modelling to test the relationship between categorical variables should be conducted for further validity. This research did not include other social networking sites (SNSs) such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook, all employed by mommy bloggers to influence their readers. Contractual relations between brand and influencer usually combine postings on multiple sites and offer an opportunity for future research. French blogs were also not included in the analysis. Future research might also look at mommy blogs from a feminist lens; with roughly half of bloggers actually mentioning their children, are these bloggers appropriating motherhood for the sake of attracting brands? And for those who are using their children, what are the long-term implications for the children when their social media footprint is littered with brand endorsements? It may also be of value to qualitatively assess audience opinion of branded content on different platforms; do they care more when they are reading in long form, such as a blog than they do when they see an image on Instagram, for example?
Conclusion
An increase in brands wanting access to mommy bloggers’ audience coupled with lax regulations unable to monitor and enforce disclosure of branded content creates a dilemma for the public relations industry as well as for the bloggers. At risk for all is losing the audience who turn to bloggers for credible opinion and authentic stories. And without an audience to commodify (Smythe, 2001), the blogger’s business model is in jeopardy. This research suggests that the presence of branded content does not depend on having an authentic voice, yet credibility does (as long as there are contests). With this research, public relations practitioners are encouraged to negotiate a stronger association between authenticity and brand, asking bloggers to clearly demonstrate their or their family’s use of the product and avoid talking about brand at the expense of a more authentic and personal narrative that maintains bonds of trust and support (Blanchard, 2006, Lopez, 2009). Bloggers are urged to maintain a balance between authenticity and brand; the two need not be mutually exclusive. And finally, for policymakers and the audience who read these blogs, take note: disclosure remains ambiguous and inconsistent. Regulators need to insist not only on disclosure but where and how it is worded for maximum transparency. In the meantime, readers are urged to scroll to the bottom of the post before reading, to be sure of the content’s intent.
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