Congratulations to one half of our favorite sets of celebrity twins, Tamera Mowry-Housley, who announced yesterday on her Instagram and Facebook accounts that she is expecting her second child with husband FOX News correspondent Adam Housley.
The couple are parents to 2-year old Aden. The new arrival, when born, will have mom’s twin, actress Tia Mowry Hardrict, for an aunty and her son with actor Cory Hardrict, 3-year old Cree Taylor for a cousin.
Mowry-Housley had been a spokesperson for the pregnancy testing brand Clear Blue since 2013 . She also mentioned the company in the share:
“We are thrilled to announce we are #ClearblueConfirmed! Can’t wait to meet baby #2! Love Clearblue’s pregnancy test with Smart Countdown. It helped me get through the wait to get my result by counting down with me. #spon,”
She likely is beyond 3 months and took the test a while ago and is only dong the announcement now for the promo opp.
I was noticing some of the negative reaction in social media and in comments section to the announcement over the fact that she included the words “#spon” in the post and used the moment to also promote the brand.
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I wrote a couple years ago in March 2013 on my poli-tech blog about how the United States Federal Trade Commission had updated its regulations back then to require celebrities, bloggers and other social media personalities to indicate clearly and explicitly when they are getting paid in product or money to promote a product.
The purpose, of course, is the interest of transparency and full disclosure so audiences are aware they are being influenced by someone paid to advance a brand.
As a blogger, I have railed for years against the fact that I see so many celebrities promote products daily that they are getting paid to social share but who fail to abide by the rules. Yet, there seemed to be a focus on bloggers, vloggers and other rising social media influencers to be compliant. Meanwhile, celebrities were violating the rules routinely and there seemed to be no interest in cracking down on them.
Technically, the brands are responsible more making sure celebs themselves do not break the guidelines and they, along with the celebrity, are responsible for any fines or repercussions of the violation.
| As BabyCenter.com pointed out, Mowry-Housley was using her clutch to hide her bump at an industry event last month. |
Now, given some of the negative reaction to Mowry-Housley’s announcement, with some people calling the share “tacky”, it’s easy to see why many choose to just omit the fact they were paid to promote a product or service.
Consumers, apparently, don’t take too well to paid promotions at all and will be less likely to trust the word of the person promoting the product if they feel there was compensation for it. They don’t find it as genuine. Perhaps it’s the same reason why people get up to use the bathroom during commercials but cannot avoid brands strategically placed on TV shows. Overt v. Subconscious.
It also probably has to do with the fact that people gravitate to blogs, online communities and social media to get the “real” experience and find dialogue. They probably find the exchanges there more trustworthy and honest than from scripted prose. It’s the same reason why people prefer reality TV or non-fiction television shows over scripted ones perhaps.
In any event, all of the ruckus will die down eventually and people will get over it.
Congrats to the family!
I am eager, however, to see if this announcement and the reaction to it will lead more celebrities and brands to continue to take the risk of an FTC fine by just not following the rules as they are already are.
….Or will it open up more audiences’ eyes to realize that they see thousands of product placements in tweets and IG shares daily and have been obliviously taking it all in and fine with it all the time.
Note they only got bothered when it was in their faces.
So it seems people don’t mind being “influenced” so long as they’re not told they are. So interesting. And with more news outlets picking up the announcement, ClearBlue is getting exposure beyond Mowry-Housley’s millions of followers.
Your thoughts? Do you see nothing wrong with using social media to promote a brand during your pregnancy announcement? Or do you think it shouldn’t be used for personal shares?