The Subliminal Advertising of Social Media, where are the limits?
To this day it may surprise us to see how a great brand can get to contract this type of advertising format, but still more to see as a means of communication of great draft it offers without modesty, knowing that it is breaking the norms and “deceiving to its followers.”
At the time, Twitter warned celebrities, bloggers and journalists who took advantage of their relevance in this social network for purely advertising purposes but … what happens on Facebook?
“What would you do with $ 500 and a Wilkinson Hydro 5 with your name?”
In this case it could be suspected that what hiding this publication had nothing to do with “The World” and yes with publicity (they do not indicate it anywhere) , In fact the link led to a Wilkinson application for a promotion.
Is this practice legal and allowed by Facebook?
According to the law that governs advertising in our country, but it is also totally prohibited by Facebook and so stated in the general conditions of Facebook pages:
“III. Functions of pages
A. Advertising on pages
Advertisements and commercial content (including content posted by the pages) are subject to the Advertising Guidelines.
Third party advertising is not allowed on Facebook pages.”
At this point, I wanted to make it known to “The World”; What they were doing was not legal or legal and as a follower I felt totally defrauded. And I received really surprising answers:
“In general the media we have to go looking for new advertising formats. With some premises: do not break the game of networks, do not be invasive, do not naturalize the content of our profiles. But just like in the newspaper you do not have to read the ad, here you do not have to click if you do not want to.”
“On the other hand, we do not try to pass through information that is not. We always lead our post with the section or subject to which they refer; We do not do it, however, with our promotions. You can see that. ”
“Informative content, we head, ‘label’. Not informative, we do not lead. We really do not think readers can be deceived. ”
“For us, more important than the relationship with Facebook (which in any case will tell us, if the case) is the relationship with the readers. Let’s go to the bottom of the question. In this wall we are, as a means of communication, and you are, as ‘users’, even if you are not ‘readers’. And your opinions fit and are reflected equally, even if they are critical. We really feel that you feel cheated, but we do not think our relationship with readers is misleading. ”
Subsequently I contacted Wilkinson to ask if they were aware that the advertising format they had contracted was totally illegal and their response was: “Hi Raul, we consider your comment. Thank you very much. A greeting.”
This is all? That easy? Where are the limits?