This community is relatively small but it seems like new people are showing up every day. There are a lot of questions and requests for recommendations or opinions. Sometimes these recommendations or opinions come directly from sponsored players or people affiliated (sometimes very strongly) with a company in some way. There are also several reviewers that are sponsored by at least one company. Some reviewers are better than others about disclosing said sponsorships or affiliations.
It seems that members of the community should be more cautious when suggesting their company’s (or in some cases their own) products. Or at the very least be more upfront about their affiliations.
Has there been some major incident which sparked this thought? I just think of Dylan Kowalski, he’s sponsored by MagicYoyo but he still reviews other yoyos on his channel. It’s kinda funny that they are cool with it, all I’ve noticed is that he does tutorials with MagicYoyos and mentions them more often then most other brands. He is hardly any kind of salesman for them though. He’s a pretty nice guy too, I’ve met him and hardly think he is trying to deceive his audience or something.
Yeah I can imagine it would be a bit awkward if a sponsored player just essentially did commercials for their brand and called them reviews, but honestly I really haven’t seen that much at all.
What about people who recommend a yoyo that’s for sale by their sponsor? Kinda see that a lot here. I’ve even done that, of course, but you can buy my yoyo here on YoyoExpert AND I make it very clear that I run the company and designed the yoyo.
I mean the whole point of being sponsored is to recommend the yoyos of the company you’re a part of.
The only thing that I would potentially have a problem with is reviews that are essentially just sales pitches like I mentioned before. But I never see that.
The people you’re recommending to should at least should know that you’re a part of that team/company. Members of a team are going to be inherently biased. You’re essentially employed which creates an incentive to sell your sponsor’s gear. When you say you’re part of the team, then the people receiving the recommendation can take that into account and do whatever they please with the information.
I’m not sure I 100% agree with this, but wouldn’t disclosing your sponsorship be an important part of this? If it’s a healthy sponsor relationship you’d be proud to say so, even. Otherwise it’s hard to tell the difference between a sponsored player and a fan, which doesn’t really sit right to me.
