{"id":19917,"date":"2018-10-09T10:28:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T21:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=19917"},"modified":"2018-10-10T15:26:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T02:26:37","slug":"btbt-sponsored-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2018\/10\/09\/btbt-sponsored-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Sponsored nonsense \u2014 the Brewers Association’s clumsy stealth tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Screenshot<\/a>
Two ads, poorly disguised as one story and one related ad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Sponsored content” isn’t easy to do well \u2014 the ethical considerations are very tricky indeed, and it’s often just all too plain to readers that an ad is<\/em> an ad \u2014 but this piece on The Spinoff<\/em>\u00a0recently<\/a> is a particularly clear example of how to do it\u00a0badly<\/em>. I’m definitely not saying it’s impossible, and I certainly am sympathetic to the economic need for it,<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> but for this kind of advertiser-backed stuff to work and be palatable, it needs to be entirely clear who’s paying for it \u2015 and it needs to be worthy of existence in the first place.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0This\u00a0<\/em>piece fails on both counts.<\/p>\n

Firstly, it’s just incredibly shallow and banal. It doesn’t contain anything worth learning that you couldn’t get from a casual minute and a half on Wikipedia<\/a>. It’s a passable-at-best version of the usual Beer 101 \u2014 “…a pure and balanced expression of just four simple, natural ingredients”, and that kind of thing \u2014 told by way of a smattering of dry and expository quotes attributed to two brewers. The site’s regular coverage of beer (and wine<\/a>, and food<\/a>) is of a much<\/em> higher standard, gives the reader a lot more credit, and manages to be more lively than lecturing \u2015 even when it’s done as part of other “partner content” deals. And, weirdly, this piece appears with the byline of their music editor<\/a>\u00a0(who also does regular wine reviews) when they have an actual beer writer on staff<\/a> (who you absolutely should be reading).<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Brewers<\/a>
The local B.A.’s website<\/a> seems to try pretty hard to imply an industry-wide mandate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Secondly, it’s not abundantly clear from the piece just who is sponsoring it. At both the top and bottom of the article, it mentions that it’s made “in partnership with the Brewers Association”, but it doesn’t quite manage to say who that\u00a0is<\/em>. Now, you may know (as I do, nerd that I am) that they are the lobbying group for some the biggest breweries in the region \u2015 Lion and D.B. (who, you might have noticed, employ the two brewers quoted in the article), plus a few of their counterparts in Australia<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u2015 but (I submit) most\u00a0normal people<\/em> aren’t familiar with them by name. Especially around this time of year<\/a>, it’d be very easy to confuse them with the much-broader-based Brewers Guild<\/em><\/a>, certainly.<\/em>\u00a0In contrast to every other “partner content” header I could find on the site and<\/em> in apparent breach of their own rules about declarations of interest<\/a>,<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> clicking on their logo at the top of the article won’t help you either, instead of leading to anything informative\u00a0about<\/em> the B.A., it links to a campaign\u00a0by<\/em> the B.A.: “Beer The Beautiful Truth”<\/a>, the very same thing that runs, beside the article, as an\u00a0explicit<\/em> ad. [Update<\/em>: I wrote to their Partnerships Editor, and he agreed with my complaint about the link in the logo; it’s been changed and now points to the B.A.’s website.]<\/p>\n

And so finally we know what’s actually going on. This is all just another piece of\u00a0that<\/em> absurd disinformation campaign \u2014 you know, the one where they get celebrities<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and nice label graphics to harp on about how beer is “99% Sugar Free”.\u00a0Too Much To Beer<\/em> lampooned it masterfully, months ago:\u00a0cigarettes<\/em> are sugar-free, too<\/a>, aren’t they? I gave the whole thing an unkind going-over last year<\/a>, as well, and I stand by everything I said; it’s a sham, cynical and disingenuous nonsense that seeks tactical advantage and is playing the public for fools.\u00a0They want to convince you, the drinker, that beer is “water, malt, hops, yeast \u2015 that\u2019s all”,<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> because they don’t want there to be demand for (or support of) any regulation that might force them to disclose anything more detailed. But you should know that reality is often<\/em> more complicated, and I just can’t see why people with common dietary requirements shouldn’t be able to easily discover whether something is (for example) brewed with lactose, or wheat, or clarified with animal products. How\u00a0could<\/em> you know, if you aren’t told?<\/p>\n

\"Unsigned<\/a>
A three-page ad in a hundred-page magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Brewers Association are obviously pushing this tactic pretty hard; the\u00a0Spinoff<\/em> piece isn’t uniquely awful by any means \u2014 as I was writing this up, I discovered an enjoyably absurd ‘advertorial’ in\u00a0Capital<\/em> magazine<\/a>.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It’s three pages of beer and food matching, ostensibly by Wellington chef Shaun Clouston and though it never actually\u00a0states<\/em> that it’s sponsored by the B.A.,<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> it leads with mention of a survey of theirs, all the products featured are from their members, and it’s full of the same lines about beer being “made from just four ingredients” and “99% sugar free”.<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> And, like the Beer 101 above, it’s\u00a0embarrassingly<\/em> shallow: the six beers are\u00a0all<\/em> pale lagers or pale ales, for starters \u2014 there’s no mention of anything dark or sour, for example, despite those being excellent food-match potential and having plenty of exemplars within Lion and D.B.’s portfolios. Shaun’s done\u00a0plenty of genuinely interesting beer events, and about a third of the list at Logan Brown<\/a> contradicts the “four ingredients” mantra he’s parroting here for the B.A..\u00a0This<\/em>\u00a0effort is pretty damn hypocritical, from him, on top of the sponsor’s obvious malicious intent.<\/p>\n

I want you to expect better than this crap. You deserve more transparency and just more worthwhile<\/em> content from your media outlets.\u00a0And, just as importantly, you deserve more useful information from your breweries \u2014 whether they’re members of the Brewers Association or not.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Sponsored content” isn’t easy to do well \u2014 the ethical considerations are very tricky indeed, and it’s often just all too plain to readers that an ad is an ad \u2014 but this piece on The Spinoff\u00a0recently is a particularly clear example of how to do it\u00a0badly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-finds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6423,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/12\/19\/10-breweries-in-wellington\/","url_meta":{"origin":19917,"position":0},"title":"Get your hand off it, Wellington","author":"Phil","date":"December 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This is indeed a great town to live in \u2014 in general, and especially in the going out for a drink or a dinner or a mooch or a movie senses. But a few things about Positively Wellington\u2019s recent ads begin to slip into the territory of the boorishly boastful\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Absolutely Positively Wellington's 'Well Proud' ad, detail","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/APW-art12-cropped-banner.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/APW-art12-cropped-banner.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/APW-art12-cropped-banner.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/APW-art12-cropped-banner.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3438,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/06\/16\/moa-imperial-stout\/","url_meta":{"origin":19917,"position":1},"title":"Moa Imperial Stout","author":"Phil","date":"June 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It looks rather frightful, that Moa, doesn't it? Maybe even sufficiently angry-faced that it hardly seems like a herbivore at all, in fact. I honestly still can't tell if I like the kitsch of it, or if I just think it's hideous. Something similar happens with the ludicrously-extravagant coasters --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moa Imperial Stout","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-Russian-Imperial-Stout-scary-Moa-face-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18514,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2016\/09\/21\/subcultural-cringe\/","url_meta":{"origin":19917,"position":2},"title":"Subcultural cringe","author":"Phil","date":"September 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"So, that was me. I'm the wag,\u00a0in the old-timey parlance of the newspaper.\u00a0There's little point pretending otherwise, since the\u00a0sign was twenty steps from the front door of the pub where I work \u2014 and a large part of my m.o.\u00a0here involves uploading literally hundreds of handwriting samples you could compare\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mediawatch"","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Wellington City Council 'Declare Your Love' ad (19 September 2016)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/WCC-Cringe-factor-wide.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/WCC-Cringe-factor-wide.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/WCC-Cringe-factor-wide.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/WCC-Cringe-factor-wide.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20599,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2024\/06\/06\/anchovy-april-fools\/","url_meta":{"origin":19917,"position":3},"title":"A hop called Anchovy, and the impossibility of April Fools","author":"Phil","date":"June 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A few years ago, U.S. brewing company Fast Fashion sponsored a new hop varietal and named it \"anchovy\", in a move that's probably half in-joke turned outwards and half marketing stunt. It's still fairly niche, but it pops up occasionally in this part of the world, and always restarts a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Observations"","block_context":{"text":"Observations","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mountain-Culture-April-Fools-2022-2024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mountain-Culture-April-Fools-2022-2024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mountain-Culture-April-Fools-2022-2024.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mountain-Culture-April-Fools-2022-2024.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mountain-Culture-April-Fools-2022-2024.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18051,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2016\/04\/19\/beer-and-gender\/","url_meta":{"origin":19917,"position":4},"title":"Beer and gender \u2014 a guide for marketers","author":"Phil","date":"April 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A\u00a0hopefully-exhaustive summary\u00a0for the apparently-perplexed: Q\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When should I use gender tropes in pitching my product and in the targeting or tailoring of my marketing? A\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Never.1 Footnotes: 1: That should do it for this topic. It\u00a0isn't complicated. We shouldn't need to keep having this conversation. Seemingly inevitably, though, it came around again\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Facebook ad (now removed) for New World (Screencapped by me, 12 April 2016)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/New-World-Good-stuff-for-the-missus-276x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3762,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/07\/09\/db-export-beer\/","url_meta":{"origin":19917,"position":5},"title":"DB ‘Export Beer’","author":"Phil","date":"July 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"To re-cap, almost cretainly unnecessarily: beer has alcohol in it, alcohol is massively\u00a0regulated and subject to substantial taxes, and the vast bulk of beer on the market is made by a few giant companies (themselves usually part of sprawling industry mega-conglomerations) and produced at a rather striking profit. 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