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Panasonic’s influencer campaign at CES [link to post]. Thinking this has internal employee engagement applications too.

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I really wasn’t trying to be disingenuous with my comment – I think the salient point is that ‘advertorial’ is commonly understood to imply both that some payment has been received for publishing whatever has been said (or created) and that some form of editorial control is exercised by the party commissioning it – this clearly wasn’t the case with the Panasonic campaign.

I think this is the crucial difference in the way this sort of campaign works (and why I was surprised you’d grouped it with ‘pay per post’ activities) – people see straight through content ‘influencers’ (or anyone else for that matter) have been paid to create, and are cynical even of editorial copy. On the other hand, various studies show is that genuine Word of Mouth is very persuasive (and perhaps counterintuitively, especially if it isn’t 100% positive).

My real concern with your use of ‘advertorial’ (and remember the title of your article is “Brands Tap Web Elite for Advertorial 2.0”) is not that you were implying that Panasonic had paid for this content or exercised control over it (you didn’t), but that it may have implied that these sort of campaigns are only as effective as conventional advertorials, where as we (and I’m guessing Greg and the rest of the team at Crayon too) think they’re much, much more than that.

Very incisive and insightful commentary on Panasonic’s influencer campaign at CES [link to post] great article @robingrant

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“The Panasonic program is one of several undertaken by brands carving out a new take on the old notion of advertorial. Rather than relying on magazines, they are contracting with influential bloggers who bring with them their own powerful distribution networks. Rather than a long-form narrative, content is fit for the Web via blog posts, Twitter updates and YouTube videos. And the key differentiator: instead of dictating the content to lead to a sale, brands typically keep their distance to maintain credibility.”

Note the last sentence, please. I'm sure the marketing firms who come up with these things have a fancy term they put on it to sell through to clients. I'm not in marketing.

And to be clear, again, this was one of several examples of brands connecting with Web hotshots for content and buzz. People can argue until the cows come home whether this is “authentic” or not. It seems like the participants are doing no harm with their readers. When they do cross the line, as in the Microsoft example with FM, readers will quickly let them know.

The big question is what does Panasonic get out of this? Yeah, it's part of lots of stuff around CES and “Living in High Definition,” but that can often just be an excuse not to prove any benefit for the brand. Will this become another flavor of the month?