This Video Contains Paid Promotion (Or Does It?)

Video Transcript

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This Video Contains Paid Promotion: Is this, the video that gets me canceled. Welcome it. Offset. My name is Emily, and I’m here to talk about something that’s kind of gone around in the gear community a lot lately. And I’m not really sure, sure. Why it seems to suddenly become an issue, but it’s about those paid product.

[00:00:26] Disclaimers on guitar and gear demos. There’ve been a couple of videos put out about this with varying levels of what, in my opinion is, is correct information. The most gargantuan li incorrect piece of information was the idea that some gear demo hours, why. In my opinion, one of the most Gargantuan Lee incorrect statements made is that some gear demoer has get paid something like five figures to demo gear.

[00:01:06] And I just off the bat, if someone’s getting paid five figures, the demo gear, they’re not just like some YouTube schmuck like me doing it. They are probably. Somebody in his studio filming an entire commercial with thousands of dollars worth of year. I’m just a person recording on a like webcam bag on Amazon for 30 bucks into a blue spark out as a blue spark.

[00:01:37] SL blackout edition, which I did get for free, but not from blue. But yeah, so let’s, let’s talk about the, just what is the issue, people who have said things like I don’t trust pay to demos which is. I’ll get to that later. Or there’s like kind of two sides of it. It’s either the side.

[00:02:02] It’s like, I don’t trust any demo that’s paid. And of course every demo is page. You just assume that there’s a demo artists they’re either getting paid or doing it for free. So there really seemed to be two competing ins to the spectrum of this narrative. But I, I just want to firstly, say that you should disclose, I think.

[00:02:27] When you’re getting something for free, even if it’s not clear, there are just like, there are laws about this kind of thing. They’re not very clear laws, but they’re also guidelines about disclosures and what you should disclose. So first things first, like I always click that box. I’m just going to click that box whenever I can remember.

[00:02:49] And I’m going to say it out loud when I ever I can, when I can never remember whatever I remember. That was such a weird thing to say whenever I remember. But like this video, I’m going to have to click this box because of regulations. And I know that they’re this way in Europe. I don’t think they’re necessarily here quite yet, but I can like lean over.

[00:03:14] And if there are things in this video that I got for free to review, see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Things that you can very clearly see. And then 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 in the back. So those things are in the video. I have to disclose it as containing paid materials. If that doesn’t sound super duper fair, or like how things should be I’m with you on that.

[00:03:53] But if I’m like playing a pedal and I got it for free and got paid for it, I do feel like I should say that. I just feel like it’s the right thing to do. But the problem is once I say that it’s going to cloud people’s judgment on my judgment. And I, I don’t agree with y’all. But let’s talk a little bit about the history of Of influencer of paid influencer programs in influencer marketing influencer marketing is as old.

[00:04:29] If it’s probably older than the gladiators, the gladiators though, like, let’s, let’s be honest. If you’ve seen the movie, you know, that their, their lives weren’t super duper posh for all of them. A lot of them had very hard lives law. The more enslaved people there’s a lot of. Really historical ugliness, but the history of the matter is the there were superstars.

[00:04:50] They were like NFL quarterbacks of their time. It was a huge deal and people who sold things once the gladiators in pay them Boku bucks to sh th th th to promote their products. And that’s early influencer marketing. Or is it celebrity marketing or is there a difference? I think we can agree that influencers aren’t celebrities.

[00:05:15] Let’s see. So the first recorded instance of influencer promotion dates back to 1760, when Wedge wood first, a brand called Wedgewood, made a tea set for the wife of King George. The third, since royalty we’re like the influencers of their era which would started marketing the brand as having Royal approval.

[00:05:40] That sounds like influencer marketing to me. Coco Chanel is a famous fashion influencer and my first foray into influencers was on the brand side, working with mommy bloggers. And I didn’t do that till about 2015. But once I, and by then it was like the wild West was over. But before that it was, it was, it was, it was bananas there.

[00:06:06] Like people didn’t have to disclose that they were writing about putting their toddlers in. These clothes from the gap or wherever saying that they got without saying that they got them for free, or without saying that they were using a certain brand of diapers or formula or toys because they were getting them for free.

[00:06:26] And so there a lot of inauthenticity around that. And there are things like that. You’re really relying on reviews for whether or not diapers are good and absorbent or, you know, whether or not the quality of, of the toy is up to snuff or whether like the baby food tastes good. I don’t know. I’m not a mom.

[00:06:49] I’m an aunt doesn’t count, but the things like that you’re really relying on reviews for them because unlike guitar pedals, which you can like use your ears and really get a grasp of, of what you’re listening to. You just kinda have to take people’s word for it or buy it yourself and try it and see if you know, the investment was worth the risk.

[00:07:17] So that’s where it’s like, yes, influencers need to disclose potential biases like that. But there was a mommy, blah, blah. There’s a 2012, there was a mommy blogger law. That stated any blogger receiving any form of compensation, whether that’s money or just free stuff has to be clearly stated in the first line of the blog.

[00:07:43] So it can be immediately clear to readers, like, Hey. This is an ad. This is essentially an ad. And so I worked with a brand that that did that. And let me tell you, these mom bloggers, they wanted a lot more money than I’m charging for my demos and from a lot fewer lots more audiences. And a lot of people just started mommy blogging because they wanted free stuff.

[00:08:11] I think a lot of them knew that they weren’t going to make money, but the bar was so low to get any kind of free stuff. Just watch the, watch, the documentary fake, famous for a little bit more information about how, how easy it is to convince a brand, to give you free stuff. But yes, but there are updates and there’ve been FTC guidelines that have come out since then to sort of, you know, I’ll, I’ll get into that sec guidelines later.

[00:08:42] I’m going to, I’m actually going to pull it up and kind of talk through it with you. So what’s the issue. I kinda got into this, but for many physical products, customers rely on those reviews. You want to know if the protein powder works and if, if your favorite bodybuilder influencer, that’s gotta be a influencer space is using a certain kind of protein powder, then you’re like, Oh, well that must work.

[00:09:13] If a beauty blogger that you like or beauty, Instagram influencer. Is using like a certain like cream or mask. You’re going to take their word for it because you like the way their face looks. Right. But you don’t know if it really works that’s you can’t, you can’t try those things on, in a store.

[00:09:45] Like you can assure, like sometimes you can get free samples, but you go into a store, you see a shirt, you like, you can try it on and you can decide for yourself if you like it. Or if you like the shirt that someone else is wearing and a video about Phoebe Bridgers smashing a guitar. I wish that company still made that shirt I wore in that video.

[00:10:06] You know, people can see it, they can make their own decision because the. Whether or not they like the product or whether or not it works is immediately apparent. And it’s the same with guitar pedal demos. I want to focus on pedals here because I acknowledge it with guitars. There’s a lot more that I need to talk about.

[00:10:26] That you can’t see like I can show you pictures of the fret work, but I can’t tell you like, whether or not there’s any dead notes on the fret board. I can like I can tell you that I feel like it is heavier light, but you can’t, this, you can’t ascertain from watching me play a guitar. If it’s heavy or lightweight, like I have to tell you my observations on these things.

[00:10:54] And provide my opinion on them because it’s a lot harder to, especially when right now, when guitar stores are closed and stuff, you can’t really go try everything. And not every guitar store is going to have the stuff that you want. Not a guitar store in the world has a two-tone, but I can tell you anything you want to know about that guitar because I have it.

[00:11:17] So should musician in musicians do this too. Musicians get free gear all the time from these brands or they get this kind of gear. Sometimes they get paid to appear in ads, should musicians. I get free stuff from fender and Ernie ball. Should they put it on the back of the record sleeve? Do they have to?

[00:11:40] I’m pretty sure they don’t have to. Are they not influencers, they’re creating art with the product. Is that where the line is drawn? Because I would argue that someone like Angela Koski, who is widely considered a guitar, demoer a pedal demoer. She just makes art with these pedals and it just kind of shows you what they’re capable of, but it’s art.

[00:12:02] She puts that stuff on her records. Why, why should she have to disclose that she’s. Making art with a certain pedal and that accompany like sent it to her like separately kind of it doesn’t make it. I do it. Like I’m not, I’m not the artist, I’m not making art with these pedals in these demos. I’m demonstrating what they’re capable of.

[00:12:29] I’m walking people through the pedals. Some people like that. Some people find it boring, you know, it’s okay for not everything to be for you. So I mean, I, that’s why I checked the box. I checked the box because I’m demonstrating, I’m doing it essentially an advertisement for a company that at the same time, I am incapable of lying.

[00:12:52] And that’s the point I, as a human being very capable of lying, frankly, I think I’m a pretty good liar, but I don’t lie a lot because in this world, especially of guitar demos and year, my reputation is. Everything. If it comes out that I started, like, like if it comes out that I use a lot of postproduction nonsense to make crappy puddles sound good.

[00:13:22] That would ruin all the hard work I’ve done to build up an honest channel that people trust. Why would I do that? Why would anybody who’s doing these demos? Do that? Like, so like some, some demo get paid like 500 bucks, like, or more that they, the bigger audiences they can command how much money they want.

[00:13:46] Would one, $500 payment be worth it. If you had to lie and then your whole reputation gets just thrown, just throw it in the trash. Can, you know, take the whole man out. Like it’s, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for, for demo workers to do that. Frankly, I get more money in ad revenue from these videos than I generally do from brands on a monthly basis, because you know, there, there are months where I get like a bunch of paid demos, like actual pay demos, more often I just get product.

[00:14:24] I don’t really feel super comfortable selling that. At least not quite yet. But I’m changing it. I do charge for most of my, my demos now, but I still do a lot of stuff. That’s like things I bought myself. Just yesterday I demo this out of production pedal that I bought from a friend. This. Mozet Robert overdrive called the lower drive.

[00:14:52] Like I didn’t get paid for this. I still had to call it a paid video because I ran it through my stream Iridium, which was sent to me by streaming earlier, very early in my, in my demo days. And I played it with my her signature Stratocaster and I used a cable that I got. From like, just to do, to do a video about, so, like, I, even though I bought this with my money, I have to click that paid promotion box.

[00:15:22] Does that make a ton of sense? Maybe do I care a lot? Listen, I don’t care. What I care about is that people have this perception of, if I check that box, It’s like the whole video is trash and rubbish and biased and cannot be trusted. And I, I take a little bit of offense to that and the truth is like, most pedals don’t sound bad right now.

[00:15:48] Like, and then if they sound bad, there’s an audience for it. Matter. Versus electronics has a pedal called the air trash. That literally just sounds bad. There are pedals that just exist to any late low-fi sounds like are there pedals that are just not good? Yeah. The Eric Clapton signature pedal exists.

[00:16:09] That’s not a good pedal. Are there pedals that I don’t like? Yeah, sure. I’m not going to waste my time playing them because it doesn’t bring me joy to trash stuff. It really doesn’t. And what I do say, I don’t like some aspect of a pedal, a guitar and amp. I get comments that call me a frigging idiot for not liking it or not using it right.

[00:16:37] Or not doing what that other person would do or Oh man, you think that sounds good. What do you know? Like. It doesn’t behoove me to shit on stuff. Sorry. I guess it just really doesn’t and it’s like, I don’t really want to waste my time. Trashing people or trashing brands that, yeah, it’s not, it’s not exciting, but you look at all these demo artists and the one piece of criticism I get, I hear a lot is that y’all like everything.

[00:17:08] I like everything I review, because if I don’t like it, if there’s something wrong with the product, Most of the time when I’m going to do, I’m going to send it back to the manufacturer with my notes. And sometimes I’ll, I’ll charge a consultant feed for it. I mean, I feel like that’s just a better thing to do for everyone.

[00:17:29] It, that feels less skeevy for me because instead of just trashing someone’s product, especially if it’s early on, especially if it’s like maybe just not fully baked. Then they come back and they fix everything that was wrong with it. The first time I did videos with a poly digit, it was crashing on me. I released the videos anyway, sent them to Loki and these in the back PolyJet back to me and it works great.

[00:17:53] He fixed the problems. He took my video. And he made his product better and that’s cool. That’s really cool. And the same as happened for like apps I’ve tried to demo. There was one I tried to demo. It just didn’t sound good. The guy offered to get on a call with me to kind of talk me through everything that was happening.

[00:18:13] And I said, honestly, man, unless you like really bulk up your documentation. I don’t want to like, fix the problems and make this easier to use. I don’t want to, I don’t want to demo it. So I hope that person goes and they take my advice and they change those things. And maybe I’ll revisit it if it gets fixed.

[00:18:35] But for the most part, I, I don’t think I’ve ever been sent an in production pedal that sucked. I don’t think I’ve been sent an in production guitar that sucked I’ve been sent, you know, $400 guitars that needed work, but that’s what you should expect for to $400 guitar. And I was honest about you gotta be honest about those, those issues.

[00:18:55] You gotta call out the good things and also let people know the things that you don’t like about it. Like maybe you don’t like the way, the, the way it’s hard to get to unity gain on a certain pedal. You know, maybe you don’t like the size. Maybe you don’t like the input jacks. But, yeah. So the point, the point is that a lot of these videos that are coming out right now are making something, a problem that isn’t a problem.

[00:19:29] And it was so hard. I see it takes a standard practice and a vilifies. It almost like it’s standard practice to say, I got this pedal. And was paid a fee to film this video because it’s part of my livelihood. And then people take that and they, they vilify it or they make, you know, I don’t, there was a big passion.

[00:19:58] It was something like expose that had a ton of gear, demo hours in it. And they all basically said it was like a 20 minute video where I felt like everyone kind of said the same thing. Like, yes, you should disclose that your demos are paid because it’s a law and we do it. And it’s the law. And they’ll kind of said that.

[00:20:15] And I’m like, I don’t, I just don’t understand why this exists. I don’t understand why this 20 minute video exists other than. I felt like making it, so that’s why that exists. But Where am I going with that? Yeah, basically just that it’s hard to lie. It’s hard to lie in these demos tone as a matter of personal taste.

[00:20:37] You know, just because a piece of gear isn’t for you doesn’t mean it’s bad. Some people don’t like clean blends on overdrive pedals. Some people can’t live without them. Some people only want stereo pedals. So anything that’s not a stereo pedal sucks. And some people don’t. Don’t ever use stereo and they don’t really care.

[00:20:56] Some people, you know, once a pedal to go to be as weird as possible. Some people just want like to get those classic rock sounds. You know, everyone is different. Everyone has different personal preferences, and that’s another reason it’s hard to lie in these demos. Ultimately, you use your ears. I trust you.

[00:21:17] I trust you to use your ears, to make a decision about whether or not a product is, is right for you. You know, and another reason I don’t like to like call out when I personally don’t care for a piece of gear is, is, is part of that personal taste. Like, just because it’s not something that I personally like, or I personally find to be like, What I’m looking for.

[00:21:41] I don’t want to discourage someone who did like that thing to not think it’s cool, or to think that because I didn’t like it, it must not be good. Take the Squire paranormal series. Toronado I did a D I did a video of that. I tried to be fair and honest, and honestly that there was nothing wrong with that guitar.

[00:22:01] Especially when you fed some distortion into so overdrive, it really sounded good. Played well solid construction. I hated that guitar. I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t want to play it. I have never sold a guitar as quickly as I sold that one. And I bought that guitar. I wasn’t sent that guitar to demo. But even if I had missed that guitar to demo, I wouldn’t have shit on it.

[00:22:30] Because I know that people like those guitars and I understand why people like those guitars because they’re guitar early guitar heroes from like the mid two thousands played tornadoes. And that’s cool if that’s what speaks to you. That’s awesome. Someone said on my Instagram today, they don’t like big Spees on jazz masters.

[00:22:49] And I said, cool, don’t buy a jazz master with a big SPE easy solutions. And. Nobody has to feel bad just because it’s not for you. Like, unless there’s a serious build quality issue, I’m not going to trash someone’s product because even if it sounds bad, I’m just going to let the sound of the product speak for itself.

[00:23:16] All right. Yeah, I actually, I do have notes because this is kind of a long video and want it to be organized. So, I mean, I guess I have a question. Why are people suddenly up in arms and being kind of self-congratulatory that they’re announcing their demos contain a sponsor product or some sort of, I mean, there was that pale of video that was kind of not good and not correct.

[00:23:43] A few months ago that insinuated demo workers get paid some like five figures, which, you know, isn’t, like I said, an edge case or just probably not properly conveyed information and, you know, Sometimes when I don’t want to do work on a product and this isn’t my life I’ve been approached, like to do. If someone wanted to hire me to manage the social media, I mean, I’m not going to turn down money.

[00:24:07] I don’t want to manage anybody’s social media ever again. I would charge, I would, I would just throw out a crazy high number. And if they said, yeah, sure, I would do it because like, if someone’s going to, they’re going to pay me four or five times my hourly rate. Yeah, sure. I’ll do it, but I, I wouldn’t be surprised someone just didn’t want to do that demo and was like $10,000 because they knew the person would say no.

[00:24:33] And if the person said yes and they would get $10,000, Hey, I think that’s just smart. It’s just smart. So let’s see. Oh yeah. I found some research here. There’s research that suggests that making it obvious when a paid review, when a review is paid or a Instagram post has. Well answered place. Like as a sponsored post, it doesn’t really change anybody’s opinion on the product or make them think twice about it.

[00:25:00] It’s it’s white noise. You know, the FTC guidelines say you should never assume that someone knows you’re getting paid for your sponsored posts, but as it turns out, a lot of people do assume this and they don’t care. Some people care. Obviously that’s why these videos exist because some people, you know, do care.

[00:25:19] They are voicing that they don’t trust people who do pay demos. And there is probably nothing I can say to you that would ever make you trust me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Let’s see. It honestly feels a bit like a mini moral panic. Do we really think that this is an issue? If you already like housing sounds from a video, are you going to change your mind when you learn that it’s sponsored content or that the person who did the demo or did the video was getting paid or got the product for free?

[00:25:52] Are you really, are you really, are you really going to hold people to that standard because of suddenly every year demo person has to pay for every product or you don’t trust them, then guess what? Gear demo channels aren’t going to exist? Because the barrier to entry would be so much higher than an RD is as it is like it’s a pretty low barrier to entry to do gear demos.

[00:26:19] You need at least one camera. You need an audio interface, you need some sort of amps that situation and a video editing software. And that’s it. The only thing that what’s hard and what’s expensive is obtaining product to demo. So unless you’re just constantly buying and flipping and buying and flipping, or like, which I think is not particularly moral buying and returning and buying and returning, then.

[00:26:50] You’re just not going to have very much content and you’re never going to have content on like the day something drops. You have to wait weeks weeks to get videos of some of these products at least days. So that would hurt manufacturers and it would, it would hurt a lot of people who want to have that new shiny thing the first day, because they wouldn’t know how it sounds.

[00:27:16] Yeah. What else? Yeah. I think that we understand that the majority of gear demo channels actually do disclose that they’re paid products. So why are we making such a big deal out of the outliners to make ourselves seem better than them to get in front of some sort of perceived issue instead of, you know, telling the truth that it’s kind of a non-issue.

[00:27:45] I don’t know. I can’t make assumptions about why anybody would do a video like that. And here I am doing essentially the same thing for 30 minutes. Again, this video might end me. I hope it does not hope you still trust me after this. Yeah, it’s the law. I mean, honestly, if demo artists are being forthright about free gear or the payment.

[00:28:12] The risk is on them. The risk is on me if I don’t disclose not on the customer, like at all. Yeah. I mean, and, and getting back to how it’s hard to lie, unless we have actual, tangible proof that specific demo artists are doing a ton of post-production is in more than you would do. During a live performance, like a little compression or in mixing a song.

[00:28:38] I mean, what’s. Okay then what’s, what’s the problem. I mean, I don’t do hardly any post production on these videos on my voice. I tend to remove sound like noise level which you probably hear sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes my room is really noisy. I don’t do that on the guitar. I don’t remove noise on the guitar.

[00:29:00] The most I do is I kind of. Even out volume levels. If it’s my fault, I’ll use a limiter. If it, if, if something was really loud because sometimes I just want to hear it and then. I it’s it’s yeah, I, I will. It’s literally just me going in nudging the volume up or down in certain parts just to make it a more even listening experience for the viewer, because I’d have to imagine it would be very annoying if it’s really quiet for a little bit.

[00:29:33] And then it gets really loud. Very annoying. See, wasn’t that annoying? I agree. I’m sorry. Why are you still watching this video?

[00:29:46] All right. So my final thought before I actually look into the FTC guidelines, so this is where you can shut, shut it off. They’re coming for me. Ignore the feedback, ignore the review portion, listen with your ears and find the demo channels that speak to you. That might be a channel that has a similar rig or play similar music because you’re going to get the most benefit from, from that.

[00:30:10] Like, like I love my tuna tone. I love the Lawler blade masters in this Jazzmaster. But the reason I’ve been playing like the, her Strat or my other jazz master lately is because those are more common guitars. Again, love the two to tone. There’s like a couple dozen maybe with like maybe more than a dozen of them in the world.

[00:30:32] I forget the actual number. So it’s not really helpful for people to hear what, what an overdrive pedal sounds like when I’m playing the tuna tone. Yeah. That’s just the truth. But. It could just be like, if, if you play doom metal, you want to find a demo channel that also plays do metal. If you play country, you want to find a demo channel that plays country, because these people are probably going to have pedals and gear that are similar to your tastes and they’re going to, it’s going to be feel more tailored for you.

[00:31:05] So, yeah, my, I know that my channel is not, not for everybody, but it’s for a specific kind of person that I’ve tried to curate and Those are the people who I actually like, I care what they think a lot. If you come into my channel and you’re wondering why I’m not playing like death metal. I I’m, I’ll be as confused as you are.

[00:31:31] All right. Let’s look at these notes. So this is@theftc.gov website, and you can actually buy these little influencer packets and hand them out to people. Actually I don’t actually, I think they’re free, but they come in batches of like 20 or 25. So I was like, I just want one. I don’t, I don’t know, 25 other influencers that I can give these to.

[00:31:54] So here, here are some of the points that I thought were important. The first one is financial relationships. Aren’t limited to exchange of money. You got to disclose a relationship. If you get anything of value to mention a product, I work at a copywriting agency and I have for several months, I’ve done.

[00:32:19] Marketing for a lot of brands. I did some marketing for  devices in exchange for a, like the Grazer. I bought a lot of their pedals, but they sent me some to review and they sent me some as payment. That’s just an example, like you know, it’s weird. I, I try not to, to meld the two of those things too much.

[00:32:44] So I have another question for a lot of us that think of value as a pedal. But isn’t it also valuable when, when the brand re shares our videos, because that’s, that’s that cross promotion cross promotion is valuable. It’s valuable to me to demo a guitar or an amp by fender and have them put it on their blog or their product page.

[00:33:07] I’m on a couple of product pages for some pedals, PA, PA, PA, PA. How’s my pop filter doing. And that’s valuable to me. Because, you know, yeah. A lot of people are going to find that pedal through my video, but also some people are gonna find my channel through that pedal. It’s an ecosystem. I think I’m probably providing a lot more value, but that’s something to consider.

[00:33:32] I got a bunch of hits when streaming reshared some videos I did with the Iridium, and that was really valuable for me. Shouldn’t I should I disclose if I like I get this pedal for free shy, disclose it. If one day Mozet comes back to life and shares that video and I get a bunch of new followers from France.

[00:33:56] I don’t know. It’s so weird. Cause you can’t predict everything of value that you’re going to get. I’m sure. They just mean like quid pro quo stuff here. All right. Here’s the next one. If a brand gives you free or discounted products or other perks, so many PS then you mentioned one of its products make a disclosure.

[00:34:15] Even if you weren’t asked to mention that product. That’s the weird one for me, because I use the strive Iridium in almost every demo. I film I say it at the top of the video, but what I don’t say is that  sent me that product two years. Like, Oh gosh, I guess it’s just over a year ago, like a year and a half ago.

[00:34:37] Like when it originally launched back in 2019, ah, like. Epics, every single video is sponsored video. That means I should always say that Shyman sent me this 18 months ago. Like there has to be a time limit on that right there isn’t but that’s what the FTC guidelines say. So that’s what I’m supposed to do.

[00:35:01] I think that’s a little weird personally I would use, cause I would use that even if I didn’t, even if I didn’t get it for free, I probably would have bought it because it was so. Solution that I needed. And I like it. Obviously. I like it, or I wouldn’t use it all the damn time. Let’s see. Next one is, don’t assume your followers already know about your brand relationships.

[00:35:23] I agree. I shouldn’t assume that people know this, but the truth is most people do assume this many people do assume this people assume I get paid when I’m not getting paid for stuff happens a lot. Happened to Ryan Burke. Ryan Burke did a video with a game-changer audio pedal that he bought. And someone accused him of only doing the video because game-changer sent him the pedal.

[00:35:49] And he’s he, he sent, he sent the literal receipt from when he bought the pedal and the guy was still like, no, I know you bought it. I know you bought it. You’re not fooling me. It was weird, but that’s, that’s, that’s the edge case kind of stuff. There are people who. Are going to assume either way they’ll know what to do about that.

[00:36:08] And when you don’t know what to do about it, maybe you just shouldn’t worry about so much make disclosures, even if you think your evaluations are unbiased fair, but tons of demos don’t give evaluations. My early demos were just, here’s what it sounds like. There are tons of artists out there right now who do the no talking kind of demo and they don’t give any evaluation.

[00:36:33] Now I’m, doesn’t give evaluations on pedals in the demos. He has a Patrion for that. Now, should he be disclosing that even when he, even if he paid for the pedal? No, of course not. He paid for the pedal, but should he be, I don’t know. That’s weird. And that kind of, that’s another one. Cause they’re not all just th they’re not all evaluation.

[00:36:59] It’s a long video. Right? Keep in mind. That tags likes pins and similar ways of showing you like a brand or product are endorsements. Does that mean following a brand that gave me a free pedal. Once on Instagram is an endorsement. I bought this old blood noise endeavors shirt with my money, I think probably full price.

[00:37:25] Like, is this an endorsement?

[00:37:32] That’s weird. I don’t, I don’t know. Some of these are just so specific and vague and they’re very clear. A lot of these are very, very, very clearly targeting like these, these, these Like model type influencers who take buses together from Vegas to Los Angeles and back to take pictures in the desert and cheap clothes while drinking their CBD sodas or whatever.

[00:38:08] If I got this QSI for free, would I have to disclose it? I think that I probably would if posting from abroad us law applies. If it’s reasonably foreseeable that the post will affect U S consumers. Okay. Sorry, European friends. But I also think my European friends have much stricter laws than the us does.

[00:38:38] So and finally, if you have no brand relationship or just telling people about a product you bought and happens, like you don’t need to declare that you don’t have a brand relationship. Yes. But it’s funny to me because this is what I’m most likely to disclose. I didn’t get paid. I bought this look at me.

[00:38:56] Lots of them are artists do this. I’ve seen it. I’m not going to name names, but I’ve seen it. It’s hilarious. But yeah, I feel like it’s, I feel for some reason compelled more compelled to make it obvious when I paid for something. Then when I didn’t and I don’t really know why I feel that way. How many times I bring up that I paid for this a lot.

[00:39:23] I don’t know why, but I feel like it’s because I think that people don’t trust. When something is has that paid line on it? Oh my gosh. Yeah. What’s weird to me is I just don’t feel like I’m often really like endorsing something by doing a demo, I’m just showing what it’s capable of and yeah. I’m sorry if you don’t trust me when I have a paid product.

[00:39:54] I don’t. I think it’s kind of a non-issue. I wouldn’t stake my reputation by lying about whether or not I think a pedal or a guitar is good. I have much loftier ambitions in my life and getting a big ding in my reputation by just being a liar. Doesn’t really What really helped get me there. So yeah, I guess that’s just about all I have to say about that.

[00:40:23] That’s been almost as long as an episode of the podcast. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t, I couldn’t do an episode of the podcast about this. It would have been too long. But thanks for watching. Thanks for understanding, please like comment, subscribe below. Check us out on Patrion. If you like the content patrion.com/get offset.

[00:40:39] Get all set podcast.com is our website. We have merchant get offset podcast.com/shop. You can rate and review our podcast on iTunes that is super duper helpful to us. And we like it. You can find that podcast. Most places find podcasts are found, including Spotify, Google play and the Apple podcast, app and Stitcher.

[00:41:04] Yeah. So thank you so much. I appreciate it until next time. My name is Emily goodbye.