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Why we are adopting a “Keep No Stuff” reviewing policy
By Jeremiah | July 27, 2009 | 51 comments / Join the conversation!
Photo by anne.oeldorfhirsch, shared via Flickr.
Jenni, Z and I were in Chicago last weekend attending BlogHer '09, a two-day gathering of women bloggers (and a few men) organized by the influential women's blogging community of the same name. Without getting into too much of the drama and debate that swirled around this conference's highly visible sponsorship opportunities, the sponsored attendees who handed out product samples to cover their conference expenses, and the overzealous company offering of, and blogger lust for "swag" - you know, bags full of junk that some people are willing to wait in long lines (or even blackmail!) to get, and other people can't fathom trying to bring home - I will say that this will probably go down as a tipping point in the mommyblogging community, and one it was helpful to see unfold firsthand.
We had not been to BlogHer before, and although we were a little put out by some aspects of the dual marketing efforts - of BlogHer's sponsors to its members and vice versa - we did not experience the same pangs as long-term members of BlogHer's community. We saw a community that had suddenly accepted that it was more sick than it had realized, and that sickness was expressing itself in symptoms that worried and disheartened everyone who knew what a healthy conversational community looked like. I won't use the term "cancer" because the cells' allegiances here are not either/or, on or off, good or bad, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with swag - you'll see some at any conference, as some have observed. But swag collecting became a tangible metaphor for what else was going on at the conference and what some of these bloggers did from their Blogger or Wordpress back-end: Collecting free products in exchange for their (and others') apparently not-very-valuable attention. It also became a metaphor for how anyone's vision can be clouded by good marketing, and how difficult it can be to remember what it is you really want and need, when confronted with what you can have for free.
We have all watched all of this unfolding over the last couple of years, to be sure. We have watched brand-sponsored moms secure their 15 minutes of fame thanks to self-serving ethical stances on blogging and product recommendations, and we have seen bloggers who parrot PR pitches and miraculously think every sample they get is "great" get declared among the "most influential" folks in social media, as well as moves towards new government (FTC) oversight of bloggers.
We have generally chosen not to comment on these individuals (and won't name any here), both because we generally assume our readers do not want to hear our thoughts about blogging simply because we are bloggers - blogging is our medium, not our message - and because we don't know how to pick fights with people we think have bad intentions without making ourselves look bad too. But last weekend, while many in the BlogHer community were realizing that the actions of some "mommybloggers" had so badly tainted the public perception of moms who blog that they felt obligated to disavow the term, we were realizing that the world had changed around "blog reviews," too.
We started blogging back before there were many parent-oriented review blogs, and we typically got one of two reactions when we told people we published product reviews. One was, "Wow, I have been trying to find a good car seat/kids' game/breast pump. What should I buy?" The other was, "Oh, I don't have any kids." Within six months we had found a broader vision, and we began calling ourselves consumer researchers and consumer advocates as well as product reviewers as we learned the ropes of leveraging the power of free media to change the way companies do business. But while we are most proud of our research and advocacy on issues like Bisphenol-A and the way we were able to uncover and disseminate information and establish ourselves as the publication of record on some breaking consumer issues affecting parents, we have been equally proud of the integrity and honesty with which we review new children's products, and consider it an equally valuable service, even more so in a blogging culture that is sick with, for lack of a better term, swag.
Through it all, we prided ourselves on the fact that we kept less than 10% of the products we review, that we make no promise of review for products received, that we frequently point out negative features of products or publish entirely negative reviews, that we declare products we do keep as income on our taxes, that we donate the other 90% of our review items to charity or give them away, and that we make an effort to let readers know that the products we review are predominantly provided by the companies who make or promote them. We thought this was enough.
But what we realized at BlogHer was that there was no way to easily distinguish this service - performed not only by Z Recommends but by a host of other other hard-working, honest, and fully-disclosing blogs that publish reviews - when we encounter people who have not yet read our blog. When I introduced myself to people this weekend who were not already familiar with ZRecs, the phrase "product reviews" triggered in most cases an instant shifting of the stance, a hardening of the features, and a sudden resistance to my claims of relevance. I found myself trying out amended descriptions of our blog - "'real' product reviews," "'critical' product reviews," "'unbiased' product reviews" but nothing felt right.
I ended up instinctively gravitating towards statements like "consumer advocates and researchers, who also publish product reviews," which felt wrong, too. Why should we be ashamed of reviewing products? And if we should be ashamed, should we stop? Had we already lost the battle of trust for any reader who had discovered us after information about BPA was everywhere, people who took for granted that there are dozens of BPA-free bottles on the market now, instead of two or three? I was suddenly faced with the possibility that the only readers we have who do trust our product reviewing may be those who encountered us through one of our acts of consumer advocacy. And I wonder still.
But through that rude awakening, we also found another path. And once we had verbalized it, many things fell into place. Jenni and I discussed it over a drink in the hotel bar on the second day of the conference: We needed to stop keeping stuff, period. It didn't matter that our reviewing was not driven by samples, that we have never been and will never be paid to write a review, that we only kept items very rarely, that we paid taxes on them when we did, and that we had made a habit of declaring the sources of our review products in our reviews. The fact that others were motivated by product samples, kept a lot of them, literally got paid in cash or gift cards, abused their role as reviewers and betrayed the trust of those they hoped to speak to, meant that that wasn't good enough anymore. Ten years in newspaper and magazine journalism had taught me that trust was maintained not just by avoiding bias but by avoiding the perception of bias, but for some reason we hadn't connected all the dots here. We needed to stop keeping any review products.
Exhausted but invigorated by our experiences at BlogHer, last night Jenni and I fleshed out the concept as best we could, and late in the evening I turned to one of my closest online friends and most trusted sources of feedback, Adrienne Jones of Baby Toolkit, for some additional guidance. Her primary role in this case was to help force us to answer a couple of logistical questions, but the thing I'll remember most is her quick shorthanding of our proposed policy as "KNS" - "Keep No Stuff."
Beginning today, we will abide by what we call a Keep No Stuff policy. It is not necessarily as simple as that, because life is not as simple as that. But it is as simple as we can make it, in alignment with all of our values. Here's how it works:
We watched with surprise and admiration last week as Liz Gumbinner, Susan Getgood, Kristen Chase, and Julie Marsh unveiled Blog with Integrity, an opportunity for bloggers to display their allegiance to a shared statement of principles and practices for transparent and less-compromised blogging. It is an important moment and these four women know very well the challenge of what they're trying to do; they have crafted a pledge that is as forceful as they can make it yet open-ended enough to encourage the broad-based adoption needed for this to have a real impact on the community and how others perceive it.
Our own policy above goes further in some ways (although not much further than the stated policies of Liz and Kristen's shared site, Cool Mom Picks, which also does not keep review products) but does not address some other elements of the Blog With Integrity pledge. We may or may not join that pledge, as we aren't quite sure what it will mean to readers if it is adopted by masses of review blogs that then fail to adhere to its policies, or interpret them very differently; but good leadership can go a long way. We do encourage any readers who are bloggers to check it out and consider signing on to it, particularly if you review products on your blog.
Swag is just a symptom
We had not been to BlogHer before, and although we were a little put out by some aspects of the dual marketing efforts - of BlogHer's sponsors to its members and vice versa - we did not experience the same pangs as long-term members of BlogHer's community. We saw a community that had suddenly accepted that it was more sick than it had realized, and that sickness was expressing itself in symptoms that worried and disheartened everyone who knew what a healthy conversational community looked like. I won't use the term "cancer" because the cells' allegiances here are not either/or, on or off, good or bad, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with swag - you'll see some at any conference, as some have observed. But swag collecting became a tangible metaphor for what else was going on at the conference and what some of these bloggers did from their Blogger or Wordpress back-end: Collecting free products in exchange for their (and others') apparently not-very-valuable attention. It also became a metaphor for how anyone's vision can be clouded by good marketing, and how difficult it can be to remember what it is you really want and need, when confronted with what you can have for free.
We have all watched all of this unfolding over the last couple of years, to be sure. We have watched brand-sponsored moms secure their 15 minutes of fame thanks to self-serving ethical stances on blogging and product recommendations, and we have seen bloggers who parrot PR pitches and miraculously think every sample they get is "great" get declared among the "most influential" folks in social media, as well as moves towards new government (FTC) oversight of bloggers.
We have generally chosen not to comment on these individuals (and won't name any here), both because we generally assume our readers do not want to hear our thoughts about blogging simply because we are bloggers - blogging is our medium, not our message - and because we don't know how to pick fights with people we think have bad intentions without making ourselves look bad too. But last weekend, while many in the BlogHer community were realizing that the actions of some "mommybloggers" had so badly tainted the public perception of moms who blog that they felt obligated to disavow the term, we were realizing that the world had changed around "blog reviews," too.
We fought the zeitgest, and the zeitgeist won
We started blogging back before there were many parent-oriented review blogs, and we typically got one of two reactions when we told people we published product reviews. One was, "Wow, I have been trying to find a good car seat/kids' game/breast pump. What should I buy?" The other was, "Oh, I don't have any kids." Within six months we had found a broader vision, and we began calling ourselves consumer researchers and consumer advocates as well as product reviewers as we learned the ropes of leveraging the power of free media to change the way companies do business. But while we are most proud of our research and advocacy on issues like Bisphenol-A and the way we were able to uncover and disseminate information and establish ourselves as the publication of record on some breaking consumer issues affecting parents, we have been equally proud of the integrity and honesty with which we review new children's products, and consider it an equally valuable service, even more so in a blogging culture that is sick with, for lack of a better term, swag.
Through it all, we prided ourselves on the fact that we kept less than 10% of the products we review, that we make no promise of review for products received, that we frequently point out negative features of products or publish entirely negative reviews, that we declare products we do keep as income on our taxes, that we donate the other 90% of our review items to charity or give them away, and that we make an effort to let readers know that the products we review are predominantly provided by the companies who make or promote them. We thought this was enough.
But what we realized at BlogHer was that there was no way to easily distinguish this service - performed not only by Z Recommends but by a host of other other hard-working, honest, and fully-disclosing blogs that publish reviews - when we encounter people who have not yet read our blog. When I introduced myself to people this weekend who were not already familiar with ZRecs, the phrase "product reviews" triggered in most cases an instant shifting of the stance, a hardening of the features, and a sudden resistance to my claims of relevance. I found myself trying out amended descriptions of our blog - "'real' product reviews," "'critical' product reviews," "'unbiased' product reviews" but nothing felt right.
I ended up instinctively gravitating towards statements like "consumer advocates and researchers, who also publish product reviews," which felt wrong, too. Why should we be ashamed of reviewing products? And if we should be ashamed, should we stop? Had we already lost the battle of trust for any reader who had discovered us after information about BPA was everywhere, people who took for granted that there are dozens of BPA-free bottles on the market now, instead of two or three? I was suddenly faced with the possibility that the only readers we have who do trust our product reviewing may be those who encountered us through one of our acts of consumer advocacy. And I wonder still.
But through that rude awakening, we also found another path. And once we had verbalized it, many things fell into place. Jenni and I discussed it over a drink in the hotel bar on the second day of the conference: We needed to stop keeping stuff, period. It didn't matter that our reviewing was not driven by samples, that we have never been and will never be paid to write a review, that we only kept items very rarely, that we paid taxes on them when we did, and that we had made a habit of declaring the sources of our review products in our reviews. The fact that others were motivated by product samples, kept a lot of them, literally got paid in cash or gift cards, abused their role as reviewers and betrayed the trust of those they hoped to speak to, meant that that wasn't good enough anymore. Ten years in newspaper and magazine journalism had taught me that trust was maintained not just by avoiding bias but by avoiding the perception of bias, but for some reason we hadn't connected all the dots here. We needed to stop keeping any review products.
Exhausted but invigorated by our experiences at BlogHer, last night Jenni and I fleshed out the concept as best we could, and late in the evening I turned to one of my closest online friends and most trusted sources of feedback, Adrienne Jones of Baby Toolkit, for some additional guidance. Her primary role in this case was to help force us to answer a couple of logistical questions, but the thing I'll remember most is her quick shorthanding of our proposed policy as "KNS" - "Keep No Stuff."
What our Keep No Stuff policy means
Beginning today, we will abide by what we call a Keep No Stuff policy. It is not necessarily as simple as that, because life is not as simple as that. But it is as simple as we can make it, in alignment with all of our values. Here's how it works:
- No product we review (or decline to review) will be kept as free "swag." The assumed destination of any product sample we accept or otherwise receive will be that it will be given away to someone outside of our immediate family or donated to a relevant charity.
- If and when we decide to keep a product - either because Z loves it, or we realize we really need it and have integrated it into our home life - we will declare in the review that we are keeping it, declare it as income on our taxes, and donate the difference between that tax burden and the going retail price of the item to charity. For example, that means if we review a $100 item and decide to keep it, that $100 will be declared as income. If that results in our paying $25 of tax on that income, we will donate an additional $75 to charity to make up the difference. Since we are already logging the few review items we keep and paying taxes on them, doing this accounting at tax time will not be hard. We considered an alternative way of protecting our real income - donating the review item anyway and then buying it new like any other consumer - but the environmental implications of double-shipping bothered us.
- Just so everything is crystal clear, we will also declare in every review when we are not keeping something, and our general policies regarding that.
- Consumable products will not be covered by this policy. Please assume we are consuming these, and that we are not accepting more than we need or than is natural to offer for a useful product sampling, as is traditional of consumable samples in most media outlets. But we will also not hesitate to mention at any opportunity that in some ways our policy is more stringent than the unspoken agreements in mainstream media, because even books and music will be covered by our policy, and are not with most newspapers, magazines, or other print publications. We'll save that discussion for another day.
- This policy is not intended to judge anyone else's blog policies, because we don't think it is impossible to review products fairly and then keep them (and could name a handful of blogs to prove it); we just think is that it is now nearly impossible to convince anyone that you do. We also don't expect most bloggers who might want to lean towards this type of system to adhere to it as stringently as we intend to ourselves; we do not pretend to know the challenges any individual blogger faces in feeding their families, and it is frankly none of our business, although it may soon be the FTC's.
- At least for now, we will not hold our guest contributors to this policy, although we will make relevant disclosures about the product's origins. ZRecs contributors are paid either very little or not at all, never enough for the value of the contributions they make to our blog, and we will continue to make use of outside reviewers we can trust for unbiased reviews, and expect that to be enough for our readers, too.
- Although we will update our Policies and Procedures on ZRecs.com, any of the details of this policy could evolve and change as we figure out how to make a KNS policy work without damaging our ability to efficiently and effectively review products for our readers, which is our top priority in review blogging. But if anything does change, we will promptly alert readers to these changes and explain why we have made them.
Special thanks to
We watched with surprise and admiration last week as Liz Gumbinner, Susan Getgood, Kristen Chase, and Julie Marsh unveiled Blog with Integrity, an opportunity for bloggers to display their allegiance to a shared statement of principles and practices for transparent and less-compromised blogging. It is an important moment and these four women know very well the challenge of what they're trying to do; they have crafted a pledge that is as forceful as they can make it yet open-ended enough to encourage the broad-based adoption needed for this to have a real impact on the community and how others perceive it.
Our own policy above goes further in some ways (although not much further than the stated policies of Liz and Kristen's shared site, Cool Mom Picks, which also does not keep review products) but does not address some other elements of the Blog With Integrity pledge. We may or may not join that pledge, as we aren't quite sure what it will mean to readers if it is adopted by masses of review blogs that then fail to adhere to its policies, or interpret them very differently; but good leadership can go a long way. We do encourage any readers who are bloggers to check it out and consider signing on to it, particularly if you review products on your blog.
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I think I’m going to cry.
You are a credit to the community and I’m honored to have had a chance to chat a bit this weekend. I hope your readers recognize what an incredible gesture you make in the name of their trust and respect.
great post...glad i met you and the mrs last weekend!
Interesting post to someone not familiar, at all, with any inner workings of the blog-o-sphere.
Kudos to you for trying to keep it above board.
Great idea! I’m not as organized as you guys but i can definitely get on board the spirit of KNS.
I have given away tons of reviewed items with no strings attached and it really is liberating.
I read this post with such admiration. I mean, I already admire Z Recommends, but the focused way in which you narrowed in on and are implementing your standards deserves an ovation.
I’m a blogger who has tried to reiterate again and again from day 1 the importance of transparency and the fact that there is no pay for play on my site, etc. It’s challenging and sometimes depressing to see the things you have detailed above playing out.
But at some level I truly believe that the blogging chaff will be weeded out. I am so eager for folks to get back to basics.
-Christine
As usual, I am so impressed with your commitment to maintaining neutrality. I first found Z Recs looking for impartial guidance and you’ve consistently helped me through many stages of pregnancy and parenthood.
It was so great to finally meet you both this weekend. I look forward to seeing what you do next.
Great post; great policy. With all this talk about FTC, I’ve been wondering when the IRS is going to get in on the act. You don’t hear much talk about the tax implications of the thousands of dollars of product some bloggers receive.
At any rate, I always sensed you were good people. Sorry I missed you at BlogHer. I have a huge stack of business cards I gathered at the conference and yet I’m astounded by the number of people I did NOT meet.
You are truly leaders in the community.
not much to add on top of what above me was said. thank you for what you are donig and i hope others take example from you.
Interesting thoughts. I appreciate your efforts to keep everything honest and unbiased. I am a blogger who does reviews, but I’m clear about it being a review and only review things that I’ve chosen to use in my home and have researched (along with other non review posts about healthy living and mothering). I’ve posted before on my blog about my reviewing policy and I don’t review the latest granola bar flavor or whatever big manufacturers have to offer. I include research in my posts and talk about why I’ve chosen the particular item and how I’ve researched my options. I guess I can see a down side to not keeping any of the items you review in that you aren’t as attached to the items, they aren’t as personal a choice if that makes sense. I love reading product reviews- seeing how a product actually works in a home, in real life is just such a great viewpoint. As a consumer, I’m not dumb enough to read any blog that reviews anything (especially the ones that think anything is great)- I can tell when reviewers are critical and have made discerning product choices vs parroting info a big manufacturer gives them. So while I appreciate your views, I can see the other side and like I said, I don’t think that keeping an item or not makes or breaks the review. (Like you said in your post as well.) You are doing “work” - consumer research, product reviewing, and keeping the product is justifiable for a well written and insightful review. I think consumers are smart enough to differentiate between well researched reviews and those that are just accepting swag right and left. Anyway… just a few of my thoughts this morning. Thanks for sharing.
Wow, you guys just blew my mind...could you be any more inspiring? That’s why I just love your blog network. I’m still sifting through my BlogHer experience and figuring out what I want to post, since it was pretty sad seeing people rush around for swag. While some of it was a nice bonus, I found myself declining a lot of things, since I really didn’t need it, when I was honest with myself.
I can’t say how pleased I was to meet you both this weekend (though I didn’t get to talk much to Jennifer, due to Z’s illness). I was so touched that Jeremiah actually knew of my blog. I think you were like one out of 5 people who knew it, and how cool that it was (in my mind) a “celebrity” blogger.
Anyway, I’ve posted a novel here but just wanted to say how inspiring you guys are.
Thanks for this post. Like another commenter said, it is usually easy to differentiate between honest reviewers and those blogs who give glowing reviews to any free product that is dangled in front of them. There is a reason that I keep your blog on my reader, but have deleted many others that went The Truman Show path! I appreciate your stance!
Jeremiah,
You are really setting the standard for reviews. I think this is excellent and will do much to raise the bar for blogger excellence.
It was wonderful to meet you and Jennifer at BlogHer. You two have long been pioneers in blogging and green and parenting, and with this decision, you’re doing it once again.
Kudos.
Lynn
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, everyone.
To everyone who mentioned meeting Jenni or myself at BlogHer - Kathleen, Lynn, Candace, Naomi (Naomi!), Michael, and Liz - it was so great meeting all of you too. We are eager to be settled back in at home and go through all of the cards we collected to make sure we are following, reading, and following up as needed with all of the wonderful people we met.
Kim, I was sorry to have missed you too! If you’ll be at ABC this year, please let us know and we’ll make sure to connect. We’re going to be there almost a full week.
Some more topical responses in another comment.
What a wonderful article. I’m sorry that I didn’t have the opportunity to meet you while at BlogHer!
I just subscribed and look forward to more great information.
Glad to have found your site (I discovered you via Mom 101’s tweet)!
Kim, I think the IRS issue will inevitably come to a head because product review blogs can’t keep a low profile - their success is based on promoting what they do and gaining readership and to do so they must draw attention to themselves. All it will take is one smart IRS agent who decides to carve out a little project for himself by pulling files on some of the biggest mommyblog product reviewers who are clearly collecting a lot of expensive items. The money is on the table.
Bravo!
Since I review vibrators, I’m pretty sure I have to keep them. Snort.
We (at Room 704) also state when, where and how we receive products, if we were paid to write the review or not, pay taxes on all non-monetary income, and believe that the only way to review is to tell it like it is.
I personally do not write up products that I feel “meh” about. If your product is worth my time, I will write it up.
I trust your “brand” and it was a pleasure to meet you.
I have been a consumer products fanatic since childhood—when my friends and family want to buy something, they ask me first. I haven’t gotten too into online reviews because of the stigma you experienced at BlogHer and because, well, you (and others) already have a great product and market share.
Kudos on your new policy. I look forward to discussing these issues with you in the future.
Christy, one of the things that was most striking to us (and that we tried to communicate in the post) is that even if the reality is pretty straight the perception is getting very hard to combat. Those who take advantage of reader trust destroy that trust for everyone else. That’s why we saw no other reasonable way to maintain our credibility. Sometimes forces outside your control can influence your credibility even if you didn’t do anything wrong.
We do read many review blogs that do not have this kind of policy, including yours, and agree that trust is also fostered by how you run your blog and the experience readers have with it.
And I do agree that reviewing should be compensated. The question here is where the money comes from. Ours happens to come from advertising and Amazon sales, either of which could be seen as an entanglement. But we see it as less of an issue for readers and also, truthfully, more removed from the interactions we have that could conceivably color our coverage than free products.
Who knows, tough FTC requirements may flush out the worst and leave the rest of us all acting very transparently. But I’m hopeful there’s more we can do as a community and a trade that can proactively deal with our problems in the ways we’d prefer to address them.
This is a problem that will have many creative solutions, not one. But I think all of us who want to maintain credibility will have to explain ourselves a little more succinctly than we have in the past if we want to overcome the justified skepticism that is rapidly increasing towards blog reviews.
This is an interesting post. Good for you!
Honestly, with all of the recent hoopla about reviews, I’m starting to wonder if they’re worth the time and trouble. I usually end up giving most things away (to readers or charity)anyway, but this post has made me think even harder.
I’m going to have to do some more research regarding journalistic standards and go from there.
Thanks for raising the idea though!
As always, I think you’re terrific. This is a great discussion to start.
I’m in agreement with you that it’s about perception. I have currently only done a couple of product reviews for my blog, but I used to do lots of reviews for magazines and my former website for writers. I donated probably 80% of what I reviewed to charity and kept the rest. To me, there’s no problem with keeping what you love as a “job perk,” but I do know that it’s a thin line between that and whoring yourself out for reviews.
Keeping in mind that writers and editors for magazines have always received “swag,” I wonder why they seem to handle it better? Not all of it… of course there are problems within the magazine world, too, but I’m still more trusting of reviews I read in mags in general than the ones I read on Mom blogs. Maybe it’s the lack of personal interaction between reviewer and sponsor… I think part of the problem is that a mom gets an offer from a sponsor and thinks, “They chose ME! They noticed me and want to give me a present! I’ll write up a great review for them.”
I dunno. I have just a few product review blogs that I bother with, and yours is of course my #1, because I know darn well that you’re going to point out any shortcomings you find (in a polite way), as well as asking the tough questions of the manufacturers.
Excellent post & policy. I’ve always been impressed with Zrecs and your site was a true lifesaver for me when during the BPA awakening last year as my newborn was about 6 weeks old at the time. Keep up the hard work advocating for change from companies as you are both “ahead of the curve” and a site I turn to for real research and critical reviews.
It was so nice meeting you both at BlogHer and interviewing you for WebmasterRadio.fm. I sensed the same thing throughout the conference. As soon as someone heard “product reviews,” they would look at you differently. It was uncomfortable.
Candace and I do product reviews on Mamanista, which we started in order to donate money to charity and to have fun writing together. (Candace’s daughter was born with a heart defect.) We donate ad/affiliate revenue to charity as well as a majority of the product samples. We disclose that we’ve received samples as well.
I admire your Keep No Stuff policy. I do keep some review samples since my son gets attached to certain toys and blankets. Since I donate my half of the Mamanista ad/affiliate revenue, I view keeping some samples of toys my son falls in love with when I’m reviewing as a nice perk for all of the unpaid work I do on Mamanista.
My half of the Mamanista.com ad revenue would more than pay for me to buy all of the products I review and more, but I don’t think it would make sense for me to donate the sample I used for review and then purchase a new product using ad revenue. I feel I can make a bigger contribution by donating the ad revenue to charity, which was my goal in starting Mamanista. But I admire Keep No Stuff for starting a discussion around these policies.
I understand the controversy around SwagHer, and I am glad that the community is discussing disclosure. Mamanista signed the Blog With Integrity pledge. However, I don’t want to presume that what works for me on Mamanista works for other bloggers. For example, I have a job outside of blogging. I can afford to donate my ad revenue. But I respect other bloggers who keep their ad revenue and keep their product samples.
I don’t think I’m a “better” blogger because I donate my revenue and most products. It’s not my place to judge others when I don’t know their goals or their economic circumstances. The most important thing is to be open and honest on your site and with your readers.
Thanks again for starting the conversation on this subject!
Your blog is truly great not only because of your integrity but because of the investigative model you use.
Debbie said both of you were very interesting, down to earth, and incredibly kind to all. Sorry I wasn’t there to meet you and hope to meet you one day.
Perhaps these are just growing pains and the community will look a lot different next year…
Debbie, that is so cool. I’m sure you’re purposely not making a big flashy scene of that on Mamanista, but I’d still be interested in seeing that info linked on the main page of your site (is it there somewhere?). I had no idea Mamanista was a “charity blog.”
I do not have a blog of our own - I work on computers all day so the last thing I need is more radiation - so consider the source on my comment. I find it shocking that some of the other bloggers actually injured a child (probably what they blog about!) to get some free stickers. Awful. I wish someone would post the blogs - I know you won’t - but seriously - I would never visit them again - I hope they aren’t any that I do read. Guess I’ll look out for the free sticker give away. Yuck. I think you guys are great, love your reviews, and am very surprised that you have had to adopt such a policy. Kudos for you for setting the bar a bit higher.
Jenna, you bring up a point I wanted to make with others too - some blogs’ policies are not as clear as they could be, even if the bloggers behind them know them by heart. That is certainly true of us and we’ll be making efforts in posts and in our blog’s layout to make our position clear.
Debbie, we absolutely agree with you on the absence of a “one size fits all” solution to this issue, and the difference between our blogs’ models is a great example of this. We see our blog as a business we’d love to raise our daughter through, and the closer to that we can get financially, the more we’ll be able to do the type of investigative work Candace was so kind to comment about. Our readers, through their pageviews and (especially) their Amazon purchases, are what we count on to fuel our future efforts.
AJsMomma, there certainly was some reportedly reprehensible mob behavior going on, but I didn’t see any of it. What I was referring to as names we wouldn’t name is blogs that make people jaded about what a blog review can do and what our collective motives (if there could even be such a thing) are when we review products.
I think this is a wonderful policy and after meeting Jenni and spending time with her I am not surprised in the least that you have decided to take this step. I have very very few reviews and it’s not something I enjoy doing , that said I think your policy is fantastic and one I aim to follow if I do review something.
In order to be treated professionally we must be professional and above reproach and you are setting a standard for that!
Good point Jenna. We sometimes mention that we donate money to charity on the blog, but we’re pretty low-key about it.
We have a disclosure policy on our site and in our posts about product samples, but I’ve never been blatant about advertising to readers that I donate my ad and affiliate revenue.
This is partly an attempt at modesty, but there are also affiliate contract issues to consider regarding “incentive” sites. Charity sites such as http://www.igive.com clearly outline exactly how much of your purchase goes to charity and how much they keep. http://www.igive.com needs to sign special contract amendments in order to donate the money to charity as it is an “incentive” sale.
Since we’re not advertising to readers that we’re donating (e.g. it’s not splashed all over the page), we’re not categorized as an “incentive” affiliate site. Per the affiliate contracts, we’re free to earn revenue from the ad sales and then choose to donate our earnings. However, if we advertised that we’d donate our earnings, we’d be giving readers an “incentive” to buy a product by clicking a Mamanista.com link.
I mention our policy in this post only to note that different sites have different models. Some donate samples and/or revenue. Others don’t. To me, the important thing is to be honest with your readers. For example, Mamanista doesn’t do paid reviews and discloses when it gets a free product sample. But I know bloggers who depend on their monthly Google AdSense revenue to pay their bills, and I’ve met others who pay their bills using IZEA sponsored reviews. As long as they are honest, who am I to judge?
Great post. I admire your policy. I too found you during the BPA period last year - thank you for guiding me through that! I would like to tell you that I always trust you for honest, real product reviews (I especially love the recent sippy cup showdown). Thank you. I am definately not a reviewer, but I a mom of a toddler with a severe milk and soy allergy, so I am often scouring the grocery store for safe products for my daughter. I buy, I post and she usually tells me whether she likes it or not (i.e. she eats more than one bite!).
Ever since I found you, when I was researching BPA free baby bottles, I’ve loved what you’ve done, and always respected your reviews. I think you’ve done the most of anyone I have seen to bring about real change in the world. You respect your readers, and you pull no punches, always publishing an honest review.
This just makes me love you more. I wish I had figured out a way to get over my own anxiety this weekend and talk more. You really are one of my favorite reads. I can’t wait until M is old enough to try some of the things you do with Z.
I guess I picked up on your ethics just by reading your blog. And I guess I was aware that there were bloggers who were “reviewers for rent”; I dropped them from my need-to-read list as soon as I discerned that.
I am impressed with your revised policy. I am also impressed with the Blog With Integrity pledge. I already assume that the other media are biased in their reporting until proven otherwise. I’m glad at least some in the blog world are trying to change things.
You guys are amazing! When I first discovered Z Recommends, it was instantly clear to me that you are very different than regular old product review blogs. I view you more in the caterogy that I view Consumer Reports. When I read product reviews from other bloggers, I take them with a grain of salt. When I read reviews from you, I have 100% trust in your honesty and believe that you truly go above-and-beyond. Kudos to you for this decision.
This is a highly impressive policy. Thank you for sharing the details and thinking behind it; it gives us a lot to digest when we consider our own attitudes of maintaining integrity (and the perception of integrity) at all times.
And this is why, after 2 years, I still read your blog and have stopped even looking at most others- over time, it’s very obvious who the swaggers are… I’ve gotten some fabulous ideas, and insight from you guys, and really appreciate all the work you put into it (as does our son, the beneficiary!). I’m not a blogger, nor do I have any interest at all in doing it- so I appreciate all the work you and some others put into your efforts. Thanks, and some of us already had picked up on how you’re doing it- great job!
As usual your integrity and honesty are a breath of fresh air. I applaud your policy and hope that others take notice and use it as an opportunity to really think about their own policies.
Your blog is the first I recommend to friends who are newly pregnant or looking for great ideas and well-reasoned information.
Thank you for doing what you do and doing it so well!
In the binky fairy story you mentioned how you kept some models to compare when new models come out. Will you continue to do so?
These comments are really inspiring. Thanks to everyone for taking the time.
JohannaD, thank you for mentioning that. We do maintain a collection of bottles, sippy and straw cups, and pacifiers in storage. We use these to compare features when designs are updated or to revisit products if we hear ongoing chatter about performance issues and want to test them in a way we didn’t the first time around. We also keep extra glass bottles we receive in order to drop test (and usually break) them when evaluating devices that claim to reduce or prevent breakage.
We will continue to keep these kinds of items, and in the future we could identify other types of items we should be keeping. We’ll make sure to include a note about this in our final policy when it goes in the “about” section of ZRecs.com.
Jeremiah, thanks for this post! I haven’t read all of it yet, but I just wanted to let you know that I just published my own post-Blogher article about “stuff” and I have a feeling it is in line with what you are saying here. (Except that I’m not vowing not to keep any stuff. I hope that Fake Plastic Fish can be included in your handful of responsible blogs that does sometimes keep stuff.)
Anyway, here’s the link. I actually quoted your tweet!
Also, JohannaD, about the stuff we save:
We also save the printed portion of packaging from the items listed above - usually storing it inside the item it packaged - so we can compare claims made on packaging over time to ensure we understand when items went (or claimed to go) BPA-free.
This is one amazing post. Thank you. I’m toying with the idea of monetizing my blog and will definitely be creating a code of ethics to put front and center just so everyone knows where I’m coming from.
Thank you for your commitment to integrity - I’m a mom and I’ll be using your site as a resource in the future (just discovered you through a tweet).
I’ve been reading zrecs for a couple years (back when it the different web addy at least!) and I trust you guys to do a great job! Z is actually around my son’s age, so it’s interesting to watch what she likes - sometimes he likes things she does, sometimes he doesn’t, but kids are individuals after all! But back to integrity - I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered about the safety or clean-living aspect of a product I see, and I think to myself “I wish Zrecs had reviewed that!” :-) Too bad you can’t just review everything in the world for us! ;-)
I don’t really care if you keep the stuff or not—having this policy and letting folks know if you are keeping it (with the ensuing $ it will mean out of your pocket) will go a bit more to saying how much you like said item.
The problems I have with other review sites are:
1) won’t post negative reviews. If you won’t post negative reviews, i never know stuff that has a problem! It really makes me trust the positive reviews less.
2) reviews that seem to be “Hey, we got this cool doll and gave it to our daughter. ANd look! She’s still carrying it around that evening. So its great”
My son will love ANY new toy for the first day (or two or 3). Its the longevity of the toy I want to know about. What about a week later? A month? (I know, much more time than that you can’t effectively review. But this is also why reviews of the toys a parent’s kid used three years ago is sometimes the best review of all!)
I’ve been thinking about this post for several days now (since it was first put up) and tonight (while procrastinating folding laundry...) I decided to just scan thru some of my bookmarked blogs to see how many reviews were postive vs. negative...I’m obviously NOT a very discerning reader as I was really annoyed and irritated to find many of the blogs I check regularly had only positive remarks for everything they’d reviewed. Occasionally I found a minor complaint here or there, but, by and large, every single review I read was positive. Sheesh! How is that possible? And how disappointing!
I’ll be a bit more careful about the blogs I read regularly and bookmark. :(
Dianna, I don’t mind positive reviews if the blogger explains WHY she/ he liked the product, what features of it were useful, etc rather than just saying “we love this product”. I think the value in reviews is that you get to see the product in use in someone’s home and life and how it works. A positive review isn’t exactly the problem in my eyes, it whether or not the reviewer thinks critically about the product and offers an intelligent opinion.
Christy - yes, I agree. I didn’t mean to imply that I minded positive reviews. Only that I was disappointed in blogs that were all-positive, all-the-time. I have many products that I adore using, but most of the time, there’s at least a feature or two that I might wish were a little (or a lot) different. It’s hard to believe that the blogs I was reading truly loved *everything* about every prodcut they reviewed. Yet, from their reviews, that’s how it appeared.
I do enjoy a positive review and always try to look up reviews before I buy. But, I prefer an honest review to an all-glowing review.
Thanks for the help clarifying my message!
Nicely said.
I hope that this issue does shake out soon—as in any situation, bloggers are handling it in many different ways. This is one of the most honest and transparent approaches I’ve read in a long time.
Way to go.
(I review only books (on a site separate from my main blog), and give away most of them to local moms and our local library. I kind of assumed everyone had a similar policy until the recent discussions started.)
Jeremiah,
Good Stuff. We have seen an increase in requests from bloggers, but have recently been inclined not to send them because the “motivation” behind the requests were unclear. Z-Recs is not one of those sites (of course).
I feel the ethics and trust in blogging also extends to the content. Many people write about things only to have certain google ads show on their site, in which they are paid for the clicks. But like anything, ideals and the reality of paying the bills have to coincide somehow.
The real power in product review for a company is in receiving “real” comments and having a place to discuss those comments and suggestions. Companies need people that tell them the truth about their products. It’s like having everyone say you look great, when in reality you have cookie on your face. Companies deserve “honest” reviews.
Looks like the FCC is following your lead.
The wording of your Keep No Stuff disclaimer got me thinking: “The assumed destination of any product sample we accept or otherwise receive will be that it will be given away to someone else who needs it or donated to a relevant charity” is kind of vague. If you deem your neighbor or relative as being “someone who needs it,” that’s swag and it’s not in the spirit of the policy. Just as you should not benefit from freebies that might compromise your independent stance as reviewers, nor should your friends and family benefit. It might be useful to clarify that policy a bit more. I for one think it’s terrific, but maybe could be clearer.
Trisha: Yes, overall we’re very happy with the steps the FTC has taken. We are confused about a couple of requirements but the ruling seems pretty clear and reasonable in most areas. Our only frustration is that it is unclear to what extent these rules will apply to mainstream media sources.
Amy: If we’re unclear, we’ll definitely try to clarify. We have made sure our language does not limit our giving to charities primarily because we want to be free to give in whatever way does the most good (we are not getting a tax write-off for these donations, instead we are avoiding the taxes most bloggers dodge [but we don’t] for stuff if we kept it. But we do also occasionally give items to our “friends and family,” and feel that is within our rights and does not compromise our integrity or our objectivity.
To make this clear I have changed our language in the above post from “someone who needs it” to “someone outside our immediate family or to charity.” Sometimes our giving has personal ties, and sometimes it does not, although we take these decisions seriously and are sending the vast majority of products we handle into the hands of charities. That’s the way we lived before blogging, and it’s perfectly in line with what it means to us to Keep No Stuff.
You are a wonderful example to people everywhere. I love your web site and appreciate the work you do help protect all of our children.
Thank you sincerely,
Mommy Bridget