Ad/Promotional Content
Why do we feature Promotional Content or Adverts at Beyond the White Coat?
On this website and on social media platforms, we may feature both organic and advertorial/ promotional content in partnership with brands.
The creation of organic content across this website & on social media platforms, as well as the practicalities of running a website incur a financial cost. Advertorial/ promotional content help towards these costs. Advertorial/Promotional content is carefully selected by the Founder of Beyond the White Coat, Dr Natalia, to highlight products or services that may be beneficial and could be of interest to this growing community. Dr Natalia’s approach to advertorial content is consistent; she asks herself “if she would recommend the product or service to her friends or family?”
Dr Natalia prides herself on authenticity, and in both her organics and advertorial content, she expresses her genuine views.
Dr Natalia does not establish partnerships with brands that require her to compromise on this in the editorial content.
Terms used on this Website & our Social Media Platforms
Advertorial/promotional content will clearly be labelled as such (as per recommended guidelines) :
Ad PR product: A product sent to me by a brand or retailer that I am not obliged to post about in exchange. In other words, ‘gifted.’
Ad PR service: A service that was provided to me by a brand or retailer that I am not obliged to post about in exchange. In other words, ‘gifted.’
Ad PR Trip: A trip that I was invited on by the brand or retailer and I am not obliged to post about the trip or any products/launches that fall within the trip. In other words, ‘gifted.’
Ad Paid Partnership/”This is a paid for partnership/collaboration with…”: A partnership with a brand where I have received monetary compensation or free services/products/trips in exchange for content. The content provided will still reflect my honest opinion. ‘Ad‘ will be used in Instagram captions.
Ad Affiliate Link: A provided hyperlink that allows me to earn a small percentage of the sale via the link. This is used on products or services that I may have inspired you to purchase, resulting in a commission. As a reader/buyer you do not pay anymore for the product. Cookies may be used to enable this.
‘AD‘ (Video content) : will be used for fully sponsored video content.
‘Integrated paid for advertorial’: For videos featuring a sponsored segment. ‘Ad‘ will feature on screen for the duration of the advertised content.
The Governing Bodies:
“The ASA: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is the UK’s advertising regulator. The ASA makes sure ads across UK media stick to the advertising rules (the Ad Codes). For clarity, the ASA recommend using clear labels such as AD, Advert, Advertisement, Advertisement Feature to be clear & transparent.
The CMA: The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the UK’s primary competition and consumer authority. We are an independent non-ministerial government department with responsibility for carrying out investigations into mergers, markets and the regulated industries and enforcing competition and consumer law. For clarity, the CMA recommendations using ‘Advertisement Feature’ or ‘Advertisement Promotion.’
The CAP: The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), whose members represent advertisers, media owners and agencies, is responsible for writing the Ad Codes. Together, we work to make ads responsible. We do this by taking action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertising and providing advice and training to help businesses get their ads right. “
Quoted from “An Influencer’s Guide to making clear that ads are ads“
What Counts as ‘Advertising?’
Paid-for-Space: When a brand pays to occupy a paid-for ad space on the website or ‘sponsored/promoted’ posts on Social Media platforms.
Affiliate Marketing: A hyperlink or discount code provided to the Audience that means we get paid for every ‘click-through’ or sale that is tracked back to our content. In cases when only some affiliate links are used, the bits of content that relate to affiliate-linked products are ads, rather than the post as a whole. In posts that contain content only about affiliate-linked products, the whole post is an ad.
Advertorial: Partnerships with brands to create content on our own website & social media platforms qualifies as an ad if:
- There is a form of ‘payment‘ e.g free products/services, financial compensation or compensation for an Ambassador Role
- The brand has some form of editorial ‘control‘ over the content e.g final approval, specified needs for the type of content.
Regarding payment: The CMA expects disclosure for any form of monetary payment, a loan of product/service, any incentive/commission or if a product they’re posting about was given for free. This is why we disclose PR product/service/trip.
Regarding control: Many partnerships involve some form of control whether it is requiring content within a certain time-frame, or specifying the type of content (video, blog post), messaging (hashtag use, tag-line/phrase) or ability to give final approval to the overall message. Dr Natalia is careful to build ‘Ad’ partnerships with brands under conditions that are unlikely to alter her genuine opinion/message.