This got me thinking as recently there was camera company called Insta360 that got into controversy where people revealed that they were apparently encouraging product reviewers that they work with to not disclose the fact that they were in a sense being sponsored by the company to review the product. The thought is I would imagine is how many times if people see that a review is sponsored that would mean it is highly bias and they can’t be extremely critical of the product. So companies would probably prefer it not to be disclosed.
After the outrage though it seemed like people were now openly saying that they were sponsored reviews. I would imagine it’s a way to repair the public perception damage that was done too. One thought I had for this though is I pretty much had the same opinion on various people when it came to reviews and the sponsored tag didn’t really change it. It’s very apparent who was always being overly positive to the point where you knew they were sponsored in a way.
With that I do wonder if companies like these don’t already realize that people think this way to. If anything, it just tells me what those people are showing is authentic and directly from the company where they try and make it look as best as they can’t to give you a potential idea of the possibilities. In that sense I would think it’s better to just embrace the fact that someone is sponsored.