Wazzup Pilipinas!
Most of the time it is hard to believe truthfulness in everything when you know what's really happening behind all those brand promotions.
Many of us could not really scrutinize on the brand shortcomings and mention the epic fails because we fear that we may no longer get invited for future collaborations.
Naturally, the brands or PRs would screen the media or bloggers and retain only those who give a favorable review or feature, and avoid the critics.
Thus, the consuming public would mostly get to read only the positive stories, and less of the intriguing or controversial issues.
During my first year as a blogger, I got hired to talk negatively about a certain brand, and the sponsor was the competition. However, I was truly disgusted with the brand so I had very little problem coming out with nasty stories because they were all true.
But the point here is that both media and bloggers could actually be hired and get paid to either promote or demote certain brands, products, services and even people.
Paid ads actually benefit those with deep pockets because people would think that the brands with lavish publicity in the form of ads (trad or online), endorsers (celebrities or influencers), CSRs, campaigns, outreaches, etc., are the better brands.
This is the nasty truth within our community. People should not believe everything media or bloggers say because we've been pollutted by insincerities brought about by the aim to earn big, or become more popular.
Trust noone but yourself. You should put trust less for brands with celebrity endorsements since these celebrities are all given a hefty talent fee to endorse. This is probably why even known fitness and health buffs are endorsing junk food, canned foods, and sugar-filled treats, which we all know are not the most preferred and ideal to recommend.
Celebrities would say good things about the brand since they are getting a pretty good ex-deal with the arrangement. Remember glutathione endorsements, when the endorser already has great white complexion already. Canned food endorsement for fit and fab physical appearance? But we all know those fabulous abs resulted from strenous exercises and better diet.
We could list down several examples but that would make this blog too lengthy.
Overall, consumers should be the critic themselves and must not rely on hearsay or even glamorous testimonials because nowadays almost everyone has a price, and those big corporations could easily come up with a massive campaign to make themselves and their products, services and people, look good even when they are not.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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