Advertising on Blogs

There has been a huge explosion in blog advertising. The cost to the advertiser is low and blog traffic is high so it is a win win situation..........or is it? My personal hesitation in displaying ads comes from an ethical viewpoint.

1. Sneaky advertising: Where a blogger talks about a product relentlessly without displaying a clear message that the product was given to them at no cost or that they are being paid to advertise (If you look at the bottom of the post then you will find tiny writing like this).

2. Advertisements for clearly dodgy products: When you go the website, you find it is incorrectly formatted, poor spelling/grammar or the cardinal sin - mistakes unintentional or deliberate on ingredients

3. Fake Endorsements: Where a blogger promotes a product which they do not use. This is often the case when someone claims that XYZ grew my hair to my knees but in reality they only started talking about XYZ two months ago. Ok so maybe knee length is an exaggeration........but the truth is two months is only 1 inch of hair, 6 months is only 3 inches of hair. Long hair took much longer than a few months to achieve, what the person needs to say is what they DID and used 2-3 years back.

4. Advertisement Overload: I think it is just bad manners to let advertising overtake the blog. There is a sudden influx of posts about a particular product or the the side bars are just littered with advertising.








I say all this because at this point I would love to have relevant advertising. I think it would be a great way to pay for my future plans and boy do I have huge dreams! I would love to do the research that is missing, for example we know coconut oil penetrates hair, how about castor oil or shea butter?



I happen to have the hair and the skills to do the job (all free!) but the cost of running the equipment is not cheap (circa $2000-3000). The fact is, the reason why this research does not get done is because scientists are trying to solve problems and exploratory research (meaning do it just because it is interesting) is increasingly rare and not funded through the usual means. Are we going to twiddle our thumbs and hope it gets done or just do it?



What is your opinion, do you think advertising can be ethical? What do you think about advertisements on blogs? What do you think about a fund to do research that is relevant to us (i.e hair lovers)?