Hi everyone. So first of all apologies for no updates for the last couple of days,
I was at a wedding and I've only just recovered. Now, while I was recovering
there has been a major hoo-ha with YouTubers
and gaming and the journalist press. Now,
essentially what's kind of happened here is journalists at the mainstream media
print media as it were
and that also kind of includes web sites that are dedicated really to the written word
of gaming, what's kind of happened here
is it's been revealed not that this was even a secret for a lot of YouTubers
anyway, that YouTubers are being and have been
paid to say nice things about games.
And well, frankly, probably a lot of other products as well out there.
everything from make-up, right the way through to cars, speaker systems,
you name it. If there are YouTubers reviewing it there are PR companies
and brands out there who will quite happily try and offer you money
to say nice things about their products or, more importantly, not to say
bad things about their product is probably closer to the truth.
For starters, as I've said in the past on this channel I'll reiterate it again
here...
we have never, and we will NEVER, accept payment
for reviews, opinions, mentions or anything else
for that matter. The purity of this channel is really important.
Our tagline is an honest opinion direct from
the UK. That's something you can't have if you are accepting
what effectively are bribes. Let's face it if a company is turning round to you and saying
here's £100, here's £1,000, here's £10,000
please don't say negative things about our product it's a bribe. Where things get a little
bit more sticky
is when we are sent products to review but
no money is changing hands and I will always start my reviews by saying
thank you to such-and-such company for providing this product for us to take a look
at
and that's a real quick and easy way for me to relay that information to you
and for you to quickly understand that this product has been given to us
effectively.
Now, I've been doing this for well over 20 years. I started off in
print journalism writing a weekly column for regional newspapers
so this is not a new thing to me for me
receiving products to then review but at no point does it ever sway me to say to
myself
ooh I'd better say nice things about this product. No. It simply doesn't work that way.
Why doesn't it work that way? Well it's quite simple actually because there's a lot of
companies out there producing
practically the same products. You know, every year there's ten different first
person shooters
every year there's 100 different hard drives hitting the market. Ultimately
there is always a renewal kind of going on with products that are coming through
and from a company's point of view let me tell you there's a lot of margin in these products
so they can afford to send out a £100 item
that actually has only cost them about £10-£15 on their books.
So the kind of cash value if you were trying to attribute to
a free item provided for review it's slightly different.
From the point of view of PR companies and so on
they are usually not in a position to try and hold one over on people by saying
oh well if we provide this product for free then you're going to have to say nice
things.
But most journalists would simply laugh in their faces
as would I. But it has raised a major
issue as it were with trust on YouTube.
Now there are very specific rules in the UK and also in America
for how people reviewing products, talking about products and so on
have to well
notify you the viewer of the relationship that has kind of gone into
this. So if a company pays a YouTuber
for a review, for a product mention for a product placement
the YouTuber should communicate that to you absolutely, categorically
and you shouldn't be able to miss that. It shouldn't be a case of oh, I skipped over it
it should be there present on the screen. It should be at the front of the video and it should
also be mentioned in the description as well. Make it absolutely abundantly clear YouTubers
when you have this relationship that could
sway your views. Things become a little bit more tricky
I suppose when we see adverts either at the front of our YouTube videos or
on banners displayed alongside or on an overlay on the video. Now
just so you understand how that process actually works. That is usually
out of the hands of YouTubers themselves. Now we either work directly with Google
or we work with
channels which are basically like ad agencies is one way of looking at it.
Now I'm part of the collective and my ad agency, the collective,
which also provide back-end support as well, helping to
manage my copyright side of the work to protect my stuff from being copied
and spread
by other YouTubers without proper credit. Now
part of the way this kind of works is they have
companies they speak to, companies who advertise on
their YouTube channels and essentially I have no editorial control
whatsoever over those adverts. I don't even know who my advertising team is,
I've never spoken to anyone in the advertising team. Essentially there's a
firewall between us so
they do their thing. They go out there, they talk to Microsoft and Samsung and EA
and all of these big companies
and they gain ad inventory to push across their YouTube
channels. From my perspective I don't know
which adverts are going to display on which videos at which point in time because the
way the advertising works
is it's down to you the viewer and what you have engaged with yourself.
So if for instance you've liked a substantial number of Samsung videos
you may very well see Samsung adverts on my videos when you watch them. It's
not me
taking any kind of direct money or payment in any way
from Samsung where there is any kind of one-to-one relationship.
The relationship that Samsung has is with my ad agency
and I have no communication with my ad agency, it's as simple as that
and that's how we can essentially say we're not being paid
for the reviews we're doing. If Samsung doesn't want to advertise on my channel
that's between them and the ad agency, it has nothing to do with me and it certainly
wouldn't influence
the things I say about Samsung's quality assurance these days.
So that's just a little peek behind the curtain as it were
as to how we kind of handle those relationships with companies.
If we're provided a product for free to take a look at,
review, to add an opinion on, we always say thank you to that company for providing the
product for us to take a look at.
We never accept payment for reviews, payment for opinion
or payment not to say bad things about certain products or companies.
Our advertising is firewalled away from
us from an editorial point of view. We have no communications
with the advertising guys they have no communication with us and
any deals they do with corporate partners etcetera for advertising
has no bearing whatsoever on the editorial work we do here.
Simple as that really. So just bear in mind, YouTube is a bit of a Wild
West.
The rules that are supposed to be in force within
individual countries to prevent these kind of well
issues from occurring are not always being enforced hard and fast by YouTubers.
So it's something to look out for. Are they telling you
when they are having these relationships and how those relationships operate?
If they're not, then do take their reviews, their opinion pieces
with a pinch of salt. Simple as that really. So what do you think? Has this all
been blown
out of proportion by the media or do you think this is a really big
issue that's only going to get worse for YouTubers and for viewers as well?
Do let me know in the comments. Do please subscribe if you're not already
and do please throw a like on this video.