I had posted about PayPerPost.com after I saw a presentation from their founder in New York earlier in the year. It seems they signed up TiVo for a campaign which was subsequently pulled.

PayPerPost is a marketplace where advertisers can pay bloggers to post up content allowing a marketer to seed a viral campaign. Bloggers who are paid to post must disclose that it is paid content, however, there is no shortage of critics who believe the concept of paid content will destroy the largely forthright nature of blogs in general.

It appears this is a similar issue to that which Microsoft faced when they gave Ferrari Acer laptops to bloggers when they launched Windows Vista. In that case, Microsoft was not very clear on what was expected of the blogger. It appeared to be a bribe when in fact all they really wanted to do was make it easy for bloggers to experience Vista without having to upgrade their own computer. They issued a statement later clarifying their position, but it was too late

TiVo paid for video clips to be posted on PayPerPost, but they didn’t make it explicit that this was essentially an ad.

The lesson for marketers is this:

You can not be disingenuous because you will get found out. If you are doing an advertising campaign, don’t try and dress it up as a consumer generated viral campaign, just be up front. Better yet, forget about trying to advertise and think about how you can truly engage with your customers in a conversation, not a campaign. That is the real opportunity online, not video ads.

For more on paid content read out Chad’s post “Why paid blogs will kill the blogosphere”

Technorati Tags: payperpost, tivo