Why K'nex Brands loves mommy blogs

Mommy blogs are worth their weight in gold to toy makers such as K'nex Brands, a maker of construction toys for children.

Working with its PR firm, Child's Play Communications, the Hatfield, Penn. toymaker has cultivated relationships with a host of blogging mothers, each of whom signs on to receive free products in return for writing about them. Chief marketing officer Barbara Rentschler says the company has had tremendous success publicizing its products through contest promotions and through product reviews in the mommy blogosphere. How tremendous? "We raise awareness much more with mom blogs than we did with advertising," she says.

Being part of the team

Stephanie Azzarone is founder and president of Child's Play Communications, which specializes in reaching out to the mom blog crowd. "We have a program called Team Mom. It's a network of mom bloggers who have agreed to write about our clients on a regular basis," she says. Why is reaching out to blogger moms effective? "It's that third party endorsement by a credible source," she says. "Moms believe what other moms have to say."

But, as with other types of blogs, the relationships between some mom blogs and advertisers can get a bit too cozy -- and that could undermine the very credibility that makes them so attractive to advertisers.

Such relationships have come under scrutiny as regulators respond to complaints about shady advertiser-sponsored blog sites and companies that pay bloggers to write product reviews, sometimes without full disclosure. According to the FTC's proposed changes to its endoresements and testimonials guidelines, the agency expects that reviews paid for by advertisers and supposedly independent sites that are advertiser-owned promotional vehicles will be clearly identified as such. Both bloggers and advertisers will be held liable for misrepresentations, it says.

Questionable relationships with advertisers aren't hard to find in the mommy blogosphere. Serendipity Mommy, for example, describes its review policy along side its advertising rates. The site poses the question to potential advertisers: "What if there’s a problem with my product or you don’t like it?" Not to worry: "In the very unlikely event that this would happen I will work with you. We’ll come up with a solution together."

The "PR Friendly" policy at Mom Trend offers to sell "Web site reviews" of products for $75. Giveaways on the site will cost the advertiser $25 to $300 in addition to the cost of providing the products. On the day I examined the site the top story was a giveaway for a $100 Dick's Sporting Goods gift card. The post was listed on the the site as a "feature." While anyone can read the PR Friendly page on the Mom Trends site, it's unclear on the rest of the site itself what content is paid for by advertisers and what is not.

Azzarone says Child's Play does not pay bloggers to write about clients' new products, but it does advance information to bloggers. It also offers free products for reviews and giveaways on the sites. Most bloggers do keep those products, Azzarone says. Mommy bloggers join up because they have "an opportunity to be the first on their virtual block to have access to new products and services." And that, she says, helps position them as the "go-to moms in their online communities." But Child's Play's Team Mom policy is clear about one thing: Mom bloggers chosen to be part of the team must review free products they're sent - and must do so within two weeks to remain a team player.

Through Child's Play, K'nex promotes its products on those blogs by giving away toys to bloggers as well sponsoring toy giveaways to blog readers, and generating buzz about its annual K'nex Search contest, which gives away college savings bonds to youngsters who create the best models using K'nex building blocks. The response from bloggers has been enthusiastic -- and almost universally positive. A search of K'nex mentions in mommy blogs didn't bring up a single negative comment.

It's a symbiotic relationship: Mommy blogs promote the products and give away samples provided by the companies to build readership and keep them coming back. In this way, regular readers become "winners".

FTC's new standards 

Paying bloggers to write favorable reviews is clearly unethical, as are pay for play reviews or creating a seemingly independent blog that's run entirely by the advertiser. But the FTC also wants full disclosure on those free product giveaways sent to bloggers -- no free lunch unless your readers know about it. When a blogger has received a free product, FTC says, the blogger should disclose it to readers when writing about that product. That has some in the industry fighting back.  A final policy is expected from FTC any day now.

Should bloggers (or journalists for that matter) receive products for free? And should that be disclosed in every case - even it it's a $10 item?

Rentschler has no qualms about providing free products. "We did supply free product for the bloggers to review. In my view this is the same as supplying free product to a reporter for review in the hopes that the product gets featured in a story," she says.

In the traditional journalism business, ethics policies with regard to freebies are usually clearly spelled out: Most publications forbid accepting gifts with more than a nominal value (at Computerworld it's $25). They set other policies as well. For example, when review items are solicited directly from vendors they're typically accepted on loan and sent back when testing is completed.

But most bloggers don't work for big publishing companies with armies of lawyers and detailed policy guides. They're independent, and each blogger creates his own rules, for better or worse. With the current effort to provide full disclosure of blogger/advertiser relationships, however, it's clear that both the FTC and the National Advertising Review Council hope to set some standards.

The publicity surrounding the FTC actions is already having a chilling effect in some corners of the mommy blogosphere - at least for the Team Mom blogs, Azzarone says. "They're making point of full disclosure on the Web site if they've been provided with a product by a company for the purpose of a review," she says. "People are already getting themselves up to speed."

That may be true. But judging by what else is out there, many sites still have a long way to go.

NOTE: On Oct 5, 2009 The FTC published its final policy on testimonials and blogs. Bloggers must disclose any free products provided or payments they receive for reviewing products or face a fine of up to $11,000. The regulation goes into effect on December 1.