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Why Big Brands Don’t Sponsor Blogs

Posted by Nick O'Neill on April 23rd, 2008 12:40 PM

Over the past couple days I’ve been speaking with people more about the business of blogging. Ultimately blogs are a tremendously challenging business. You need to post as much as possible and you need to break news stories on a regular basis if you plan on getting to the top. Frequently you also need to play dirty to reach the pinnacles of success. There are handsome rewards for the best bloggers but the space available to the best is limited.

If you take a look at the top blogs on Technorati, very few have managed to get top advertisers sponsor their site. Huffington Post, the top blog according to Technorati, appears to be one of the lucky few that has obtained large advertisers. The rest for the most part have failed in this regard. So why do big brands consistently stay away from event the largest blogs on the internet?

I would say posts like this one by Mike Arrington would be one of the primary reasons large brands stay away. Mud slinging and straightforward slander. A statement such as “Cook was directly responsible for scaling Twitter, and he very much failed in his job” by Mike Arrington is not only opinion but it’s completely false. Compare the downtime of Twitter to the downtime of MySpace during their peak growth periods and you’ll see substantially more uptime for Twitter.

In “Cult of the Amateur” (which I have been quoting frequently as of late), Andrew Keen sits down with Al Saracevic, the deputy business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Keen asks Saracevic, “What do you think distinguishes bloggers from professional journalists?” His response was that “In America, bloggers don’t go to jail for their work.”

On a daily basis bloggers lash out against others and make false accusations which traditional journalists stray from. Is this freedom of speech? Of course but there is definitely crossing the line and the decision of bloggers as a whole (I have done so myself) to show their willingness to make slanderous statements about others is why big brands stay away.

Not all blogs participate in such behavior though. I have met a number of journalists that have started their own blogs with the intent to grow them big and they typically don’t make false accusations. In the world of blogging, lashing out against others attracts links and makes headlines. In the world of journalism, it attracts lawsuits. Until there is a standard for “citizen journalism” and bloggers as a whole, lines will continue to be crossed and the leaders will continue to play dirty.

It’s the nature of the game. While unfortunate, it has become a fact of life. Do you think there should be some sort of certification or standard created for blogging?

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Viewing 8 Comments

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    While I can't stand that book, I do agree that bloggers like us that do report news need a code of ethics, a sense of profession. There are efforts to do this by people like Bob Cox at the Media Bloggers Association.

    Keen's comment about jail stems from a different in American and UK libel laws. What I suspect really bothers Keen is that in the new media world, you don't need to have a gatekeeper, promotion, or apprenticeship to publish. You need to be right. And if you're right enough, you'll no longer be an amateur.

    Besides, most of Keen's book is a tome of hate against Wikipedia, anyway...and it's a known fact that for most topics covered in major encyclopedias, Wikipedia is just as accurate.

    Keen is a snob who would like the unwashed masses to simply go away and leave newsgathering and dissemination of facts to the Oxbridge elite of his homeland. He should go away.
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    With the freedom to blog or talk about whatever you want to comes the responsibility to be held accountable for your words. It's unfortunate that society rewards those who post false accusations. It's the precise reason tabloids are so popular, but yet not reputable.

    I'd get more specific on my analysis, but I'd prefer not to pop up on some peoples' radar screens.
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    Then why do you suppose brands happily support the op-ed sections of newspapers, Fox news (which won a federal court case explicitly affirming its right to lie on the air), Comedy Central (I include this for balance, but it in fact has a better record for accuracy than some other supposedly more reputable outlets) and talk radio? To name two, Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd have made personal attacks based on lies and innuendo their stock in trade, and neither of them have ever gone to jail.

    I propose two other reasons. One is that media-buying agencies don't want to deal with the complexity of putting together several million eyeballs at a time online when they can get the same reach with a single network television/radio or national print buy. Number two is that, given the rather sorry state of broadband penetration and declining adult literacy in the US, even the biggest blogs, even aggregated in networks, may not be delivering audience numbers in the millions in the first place.
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    @Mary those are great points ... you may be accurate about having to aggregate all the views. I gotta say that the ad agencies must be lazy people then ...

    I'm not sure that the lack of literacy is one of the reasons though
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    remember that for a variety of blogs the current prize is links - that's the key. if some other metric was the key for him or her, then that would be the key.

    always remember this line from the honeymooners... you better be nice to people on the way up, because you are going to see the same people on the way down.
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    @Allen , I agree that links are key but isn't making money more important for a business? A business can have a line out the door and around the block but if they have nothing to sell, they are worthless.
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    "Do you think there should be some sort of certification or standard created for blogging?"

    Of course not. If a blogger can't conduct himself well, he will pay for it in the marketplace. Certification? By who?? That's absurd.
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    I think perhaps big-time advertisers are probably pursuing sponsorships on ads, but what about authenticity and transparency on blogs? Do these things play a factor in how the blogger decides who they can have on their site IF their blog becomes a high-traffic domain? Will people criticize the blogger for succumbing to the "greed of corporate America"? How can a journalist (professional or citizen) truly write about stuff sans bias without the issue about transparency lingering over their shoulder?

    Of course I agree that brands probably don't want to get mixed in with bloggers who trash each other and slander their compatriot's good name to get a leg up on the competition.

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