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[GWL]: Paid mentions of products

In my view, all paid advertising should be listed as paid advertising.  
Magazines often have long informative sections that are like articles, 
but are controlled by and paid for by an advertiser.  They are called 
advertorials, and that is fine; there is a line at the top that declares 
the piece as advertising.  Many magazines, however, have long glowing 
articles that feature certain products or companies, and seem very like 
advertorials; but they are presented as articles.  I don't have to see 
more than one or two of these in a magazine before serious suspicions 
arise, and I lose whatever trust I might have had in the magazine.  

Even with novels, I think there is a huge difference between mentioning 
a brand with and without pay.  First, if you mention or focus on a brand 
without pay, it is probably because it fits in with your character and 
helps portray her, or for other idiosynchratic reasons of your own, a 
matter of your own self-expression.  You will probably portray the 
product accurately to the best of your ability, just as you portray all 
basic facts as truthfully as possible.  If you have inaccuracy and 
mistakes in the little stuff, your overall fiction looses credibility 
and doesn't work.  

When you accept money for inserting a mention of a product and brand, 
the company paying the money is paying for the product's being presented 
in a certain way.  They call the shots.  They will probably push for the 
mentions to be major and central, and more elaborate and positive than 
anything you would have done spontaneously.  If the money involved is 
trivial, it's not likely to be worth messing with.  If it is major, you 
will have to wonder to what extent you have sold out your readers.  
Would this character really have spent all her time fantisizing about a 
certain brand of jewelry?  Could the book have been better if it wasn't 
set in a jewelry store?  Is this actually the signal jewelry brand 
readers ought to know about?  And if so, is that more or less important 
than whatever else you were trying to say before and after the company 
got involved?

I have on more than one occasion tried a product because a certain 
fictional character liked it.  I did so, because I "respected" the 
fictional character and the author, and figured if this character, who 
is a gourmet, liked that particular brand of tea or scotch or whatever, 
then I might too.  Also, when one is a fan of a particular character it 
adds to the overall experience to try the product too.  I've found one 
brand of tea and one scotch I liked that way.  Yet, I am someone who 
hardly ever responds to ordinary advertising.    

I don't think there is anything necessarily immoral in taking money for 
product mentions, but I do consider this paid advertising, and as a 
reader, I would prefer to see all advertising labeled as such.  (And the 
same applies, I feel, to movies.  I think paid product placements should 
be listed openly as advertisements.)

When we're writing garden information, I think it is even more important 
to separate ads and info than with fiction.  Furthermore, mentions and 
endorsements merge.  In my plant breeding book, for example, I have an 
episode in the chapter "Conversations with a Squash" in which I head for 
the field with my big peasant hoe over my shoulder.  I think readers who 
trust me understand that I genuinely do use such a hoe, and further, 
that I think this hoe is something they might like to know about.  In 
fact, I think such huge peasant hoes are incredibly useful tools 
compared to the ordinary American hoes, but I have never seen them 
anywhere except mail order.  I read somewhere that this tool is the most 
common hand tool used by peasants everywhere.  Yet few Americans have 
ever even seen one.  I didn't say any of that in the chapter; I just 
mentioned the hoe.  I don't think I could mention a company or tool or 
type of tool in my nonfiction gardening work without it constituting 
somewhat of an endorsement unless I included a specific disclaimer.  

One often sees garden writers mentioning a tool or brand and also giving 
a disclaimer.  "I had it lying around."  "I got it at a garage sale for 
free."  "I don't know whether it is the best whatever, but someone gave 
me one."  These writers realize that a specific mention in the absence 
of other information will tend to be viewed as an endorsement in the 
garden writing game.

Carol Deppe
Author of BREED YOUR OWN VEGETABLE VARIETIES:  THE GARDENER'S AND 
FARMER'S GUIDE TO PLANT BREEDING AND SEED SAVING (Chelsea Green, Dec. 
2000)  (See table of contents, excerpts, & reviews at 
www.chelseagreen.com.)  

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