I have a new client who is a local restaurant owner and while we were meeting today, he offered me a free sandwich. At first, I was going to turn him down and politely drink my coffee but sitting there for over an hour and smelling all the good smells, I broke down.
"The Italian Job" is a restaurant favorite that has got high quality salami, roasted red peppers, fresh baked bread trucked in from a Boston bakery…I know enough with the temptation, right? I said yes to a sandwich that was both free and looked fantastic.
And you know what? It was fantastic. It may be among the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life.
This got me thinking about doing something to get something free and how common this actually is. Zagats sends you a free guide for a review, bloggers get paid for posts (not me but some bloggers do it for extra income), and publishers and record companies send out free stuff to the press to review all the time.
Now I'm not getting paid to say I like this sandwich, but was getting a free sandwich going to taint my review? I'd like to think that I'm impartial, as I have said unfavorable things about some books that have been sent to me to review on this blog. Hmm…
What do you think: If you walked by a restaurant and they were offering a free sandwich for a review, would you take it? And when you did write the review, would you feel like you had to say something good about it since it was a "free"?
I think full disclosure is important and that not every review reports how “fantastic” the subject of the review was. If they are all good reviews then maybe they are not honest? That’s what I would think.
You’ve certainly not given good reviews on everything, so I’m not suggesting you have a problem, Nicole. Only that that is one hint I would look for to see if the reviewer is still impartial to their income source.
But full disclosure is important.
Yeah, I agree with Michael. Full disclosure is important to anyone writing a review in which they receive compensation – be it a free sample or money.
For myself, I’d be happy to write a review in exchange for something free – so long as the company asking for the review was aware that I planned to be extremely honest with my review. If they had qualms, then I’d tell them to ask someone else. I’m not willing to compromise my integrity to get free stuff!
When I worked at Inc. magazine we had rules about this very thing. When we did our gadget gift guide we were not allowed to keep the gadgets we were sent. We always sent them back so that we didn’t have to worry about a bad review.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with accepting the free gifts. I can easily see how it could adjust a fully honest review, specifically for a new reviewer who doesn’t get many gift offers. full disclosure is best, but as you receive more requests and gain more experience, I think you will become closer to being able to review at full disclosure.