The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2024
Marketit paid influencers to post reviews of products they'd never used
Ad agency Marketit wrote fake experience reviews and paid influencers to post them without disclosing the payment. Korea's KFTC fined it.
Marketit · 2024-07-24
What happened
Marketit and Flow Marketing, two South Korean advertising agencies, recruited influencers to post experience reviews of products they had never used. The agencies wrote the posts in advance and handed them to the influencers, who published them on their personal blogs verbatim as genuine recommendations.
Marketit also paid the influencers financial compensation but hid the fact that a payment had been made — an economic relationship the law requires be disclosed. Roughly 3,900 fake review ads were posted by Marketit over about a year, and around 2,600 by Flow Marketing over about three years.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission ruled the undisclosed, ghost-written reviews were false and exaggerated advertising that misled consumers about the products.
It imposed corrective orders and a combined surcharge of 1 million won on the two agencies.
Why it happened
- A review written by the seller and posted by a stranger is the most convincing kind of lie
- Concealing the payment hid the exact fact that would have told readers the post was an ad
- The agencies multiplied the deception thousands of times and still the fine was small
The lesson
A review is only worth what the reader trusts. Paying influencers to post ghost-written praise without disclosing the payment turns their credibility — and trust in all reviews — into a paid illusion.
Aftermath
The KFTC fined Marketit and Flow Marketing a combined 1 million won and ordered corrective action after finding they had fabricated consumer experience reviews. The agencies wrote the posts, paid influencers to publish them on personal blogs, and hid that the influencers had been paid. Around 3,900 fake reviews were posted by Marketit over about a year and 2,600 by Flow Marketing over about three years.
Sources
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