John Oliver Exposes the Dark Side of Sponsored Content

Marketers love sponsored content. The problem is, when that “content” happens to be biased propaganda to sell questionably effective miracle cures, the entire industry gets blamed. That’s effectively what happened when talk show host John Oliver exposed the near-fraudulent way that many marketers are using sponsored content to promote their products on local news broadcasts.

For anyone in marketing, the entire segment is painful to watch and hard to disagree with. I believe in the power of sponsored content, and I have seen it work. But when a media group cashes a check to let literally anything on the air with no standards at all, you end up with a lot of manipulative and believable bullshit getting air time.

What’s the solution? It seems pretty simple. TV stations (and most other forms of credible media) already have editors and producers on staff. Part of their job should be to establish minimum standards for truth and authenticity of any potential sponsored content. You can never silence the bullshit or remove it completely, but at least anyone accepting sponsored content could prevent themselves from giving it legitimacy so frequently and easily.