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Follow The Yellow Brick Road
Fake Stars, Real Lawsuits: How Review Hijacking Can Kill Your Brand
00:18:21
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- [00:00]
A
Fake stars can earn you a real lawsuit. One of the most dangerous shortcuts of E commerce and direct response. They're going to use fake reviews because their products suck.
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B
Anytime that we are incentivizing someone to provide a review for a product, it's no longer a review. It becomes a testimonial and basically an advertising message for the brand.
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A
Exactly. You gave T shirts to. Now you've got a review or social proof without having to say, I incentivize these people to say this. Beautiful. So that's how you manipulate reviews. That's a great way to legally manipulate reviews, right? If you're using reviews to build trust, make sure they're real. Because fake stars can earn you a real lawsuit. Welcome to marketing on trial. Today, my co host Ryan and I will be exposing one of the most dangerous shortcuts in E commerce and direct response review hijacking. It's so easy and it's so common, but how much risk are you unknowingly exposing yourself to with fake reviews? From Amazon to Shopify to YouTube influencers, the FTC is cracking down hard on fake, incentivized or repurposed reviews. And brands are paying the price. Ryan and I are going to show you what counts as deceptive, how to spot red flags in your review strategy and how to clean it up before the feds come knocking. Are you ready?
- [01:23]
B
Let's do it.
- [01:24]
A
All right. So, Ryan, here we are again. I'm really excited about today because. And I want to be mindful there are different types of people using different types of reviews. So I want to be mindful of that. There's a type of person who's just making up reviews. They're buying before and after photos or they're just typing up nonsense and saying, Jane from Alabama, who doesn't exist, said something. We're not talking to you because you're not going to listen to us anyway. You don't know how to sell, so you're using fake reviews. That's not our thing. We're going to be talking to people who want to use reviews correctly and may not understand the nuances of using reviews. A couple of quick examples of reviews that are not you cannot use, but we're going to tell you how to use them is you can't give someone your product and then take their review and then post it as a review for the product. There's a way to do that, but you can't just do that. You can't take a review from your company. Let's say you Have a brand that is yada yada supplements and take one from a joint support product and move that review about that product to a weight loss product. So we're gonna be walking through some of these things today. I'm gonna ask you some questions, but go ahead. Ryan, what is review hijacking and why it's a legal nightmare for you?
- [02:43]
B
No, I wanted a level set. So we're talking about reviews. Like what is a review versus a testimonial?
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A
Okay?
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B
So anytime that we are incentivizing someone to provide a review for a product, it's no longer a review, it becomes a testimonial and basically an advertising message for the brand.
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A
And if I give them the product.
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B
For free, that's incentivizing.
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A
If I give them a VIP coupon, it's anything.
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B
If you give someone anything of value, anything that would influence their opinion for good or bad, that needs to be disclosed. And like, think about it from a consumer's perspective. If there's someone who's out there touting a product, if you knew that they received free product or you gave them a trip to Fiji or something like that, you probably discount that review or that advertisement somewhat, right? Because they're at least getting something. The whole idea of the material connection disclosures to put consumers on notice that there's at least some connection between the business.
- [03:37]
A
There's a way to do that without that. But yes, you're right.
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B
So, yeah, I just wanted to level set. Like the second we start taking reviews and incentivizing them, they are still what we would call reviews, but they are conveying an advertising message. And that's important because there's a bunch of rules that go along with that.
- [03:54]
A
So how do I disclose that? Do I have to put it on every single review?
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B
Context is important. The FTC has issued the endorsement guides, has a lot of discussion about, you know, how you disclose the material connection disclosure.
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A
The.
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B
There's also a social media guide that is geared towards social media influencers. But let's just take Instagram, for instance. If you have someone that's like, hey, I'm Ryan, I just bought your dietary supplement or I brought whatever it is, I love it. It does X, Y and Z. It makes me feel great. You know, I just, I just love this brand so much. You know, the FTC would say, because this is not just a review anymore, it's being, you know, and you receive, say you receive free product or, you know, something of value. You know, the FTC is going to say, you need to Give some sort of voiceover like, hey, they gave me some free product that I'm just trying out.
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A
Right.
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B
And to be honest, if you do it at the very beginning of an.
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A
Ad, it works really well because nobody cares.
- [04:45]
B
Immediately takes you satisfy the requirement. But also in the in text portion, so it's got the video. And then below, you know, you have the beginning part of the text. You need to disclose that. And like above the more button. So when we're looking at an Instagram ad, how everything they condense the text, it needs to be in that above the more button. So it's a hashtag ad or brand ambassadors gotten a bad rap because of some of the guidance, but just some sort of, you know, indicator that there's a connection between you and the brand.
- [05:12]
A
Okay, I'm on my sales page, I'm pulling reviews. So that's great information for Instagram and social. But what about on my sales page when I'm pulling reviews and putting reviews on my sales page?
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B
So you need to make sure that there's a clear and conspicuous disclosure clear and conspicuous language that the FTC uses, which for anybody that doesn't understand what that means, unavoidable, like you cannot miss.
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A
This all the way at the bottom of your bottom editions, does that.
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B
But it also needs to be like in close proximity to those reviews that you're.
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A
And what's the language I need to put. So I've got, let's say I've got five reviews and some of the reviews, maybe they had a coupon, maybe I gave them free product, a T shirt, whatever.
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B
I mean, it can be simple asterisk. I wouldn't do an asterisk. I just put it above the, you know, you've got the review panel. And above it I would put above it. Not below it, but above it. Not in gray text, but in bold. Preferably the same size as other stuff. Yeah, but it needs, it can be context specific. But something that says, hey, look at these great customers, we gave them some free product. Or you're probably not going to be doing this if you paid them. Right.
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A
Reviews are real reviews. We're going to talk about that, but we're talking about reviews that you get because you gave them free product.
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B
Yeah, I mean, then you're just going.
- [06:25]
A
To say like, hey, brand that hasn't sold anybody anything. You need testimonials there? How do I put testimonials on my page? Give them free product, but you just have to disclose it. So, okay, so I've got a new product I got a supplement or a bunch of workout videos or whatever and I give it to you for free so that I can get your honest feedback and opinion. I'm going to put something above that review. What do I put there? So I have the testimonials there, but it doesn't kill my conversions. What do I put? But also doesn't give me a lawsuit.
- [06:57]
B
They received free product. I mean if that's what they got, like, hey, these guys tried our product and loved it and we gave them some.
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A
I would actually tell a story. Can I. What I would do if it was my product or a product that I was responsible for, what I would do is I would build it into this story of the sales letter, the vsl, whatever. And I would say to make sure that this is what I did for me, because that's usually the story. Right. I went out and I created this thing because I was overweight or because I had erectile dysfunction or whatever. Not me obviously, but you know what I'm saying. And so generally the storyline is something that someone did for their own gut health or whatever, their story. But to make sure that I wasn't the only one to make sure it wasn't an anomaly, I went out and asked 10 of my friends to try the product. And here is their results. After I gave it to them and had them take it for 30 days, 60 days, 120 days, whatever, that's what I would do. Legal.
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B
I think that'll be fine. Context is going to be specific. But we were talking about that review panel. We're like pumping these out on the website and it's coming from either a third party site now it's that kind of like revolving window at the somewhere on the webpage. It's like Sally loved this product and it's a five star or something like that. So that's a little bit more.
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A
And I'm saying don't even put them there. Make those all real reviews. I mean real reviews from paying customers. If you don't have that yet because you're a brand new product, you have to have that social proof, right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Then that's how I would do it. I'm coming from a completely different how to use reviews the right way. That's probably going to be your best way. And then after that story you can add those in in between the story and then pick up again with how excited you were at their results. And now you're making it open for sale. What's up? We interrupt this podcast to remind you to like and subscribe so that you can always be in the know of when Ryan and I drop a new episode of Marketing on trial. Also sign up at www.specialopspodcast.com for our visionary vault and get all of our freebies. Let's talk about how to use reviews the right way. So randomly people go on Yelp, trustpilot, Google, wherever your Facebook page, what do I do and how do I make it so that I am complete compliance always.
- [09:12]
B
So if someone goes to a third party website, let me ask you this, are they incentivized or not?
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A
No, they're just random reviews. Random. We're going to go over incentivized in a moment. But just random reviews that just come up.
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B
And that's so what I said at the very beginning to level set difference between a review testimonial. You have no obligation to police reviews on third party sites at all. Not at all.
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A
Okay, what about your site? So my Facebook page, let's just say someone comes in, you come in and you say, loved your weight loss product, lost 12 pounds in one week. My responsibility to depends on how you're.
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B
Using it, if you're, if you are promoting. So let's go back to that like window where all those at those reviews are coming. If you're pulling everything from say trustpilot and you're not curating, you're not excluding certain reviews, everything that is just popping up there and it's just a fake feed from an API shouldn't be an issue. So if you're pulling stuff from trustpilot, any of those platforms, so long as they're not incentivized, no obligation to police, even if you're just featuring them on your website.
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A
Okay.
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B
You need to be careful to make sure that you're not curating those reviews because the second you start doing that, it makes it look like you're highlighting the five stars or the one stars or something like that, that's totally fine when you get into incentivizing these people. So think about it like you buy a supplement, you send them a box and there's a card. That card says go over to XYZ website and submit a review. The second you start doing that is when you start featuring it on your website. That's when we get into the. Well, we're. Is it just a review or is it a testimonial? It's really going to be a testimonial at that point because you're, you're driving traffic. I mean you're driving these consumers to go and talk about your product. And they're doing it, like, exactly. And so that's when you have to start incorporating some of those material connection disclosures.
- [11:04]
A
So I want to talk about how we can legally get some reviews. So we understand that the difference between a review and a testimonial. Right. Okay. So I believe it was either insanity or P90X. I don't remember which one. What they did was. And I thought it was brilliant. If you hit your goals and this is part of their marketing. When you purchased, if you hit your goals, when you hit them, you would write in, call in. I'm not sure what it was, but you did something. You took an action where you said, hey, I hit my goal. Here's what I did. And you get a shirt. And it was like, I did it. I don't remember what the shirt said. It was better marketing than that. It was like, I did it. And so people really wanted this shirt. And because so many people bought this thing, you actually see it still today. I wish I could remember what it was. But that's a great way to get a review because then I can take those people that I've sent the shirt to, and that's now a review for me.
- [11:58]
B
It's brilliant. People are walking around with a T shirt, basically certified, whatever, your product works. And you're not tying this to, like, submit us to review and then we'll give you a T shirt. It's like, no, meet your goals and we'll give you a T shirt.
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A
Right.
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B
Like, it's part of the whole thing. And then however they ultimately, I mean, they're walking, basically walking around, review for your product.
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A
Right.
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B
It's brilliant. No problem with that.
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A
What's some other ways I can do that?
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B
So let's go back to neutral for a second.
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A
Okay.
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B
Happens all the. Or anything that we see on Amazon, I get those little cards in the box, or you open up your Amazon box and there's a little.
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A
Yeah, yeah. I got my journal, my yearly journal. I use it every year. I don't know why I can't remember the name of it. They do that. They have a little bookmark that says, let us know what we can do better.
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B
That's the best way to do it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, because when we were talking about reviews and testimonials, the second you start giving someone an incentive, that's when we cross that line. Line from review to testimonial. Right. So if you just put a card in there and says, hey, make us better, you know, Good, bad, whatever it is, we're trying to build a brand. We need to know, please spend your time and give us some reviews. Great way to do it. I don't know if the response rate of that will be. Usually you're probably either going to get the people that really, really like your product or really, really don't.
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A
Right.
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B
Not a good distribution.
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A
So make sure you have a good product if you're going to do this.
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B
Exactly. If you are going to do it with some sort of like incentive, like, hey, come and leave a review, you want to be careful. Or come leave a review and you're.
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A
Going to get a coupon for 50%, whatever.
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B
Yeah, you just, you shouldn't use. The FTC will say, you shouldn't use leading language.
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A
Okay.
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B
So you, you shouldn't say, if you love our product, go leave us a review. Or more worse, if you love our.
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A
Product, leave a review. If you don't, fuck off. That's Perry's thing, right?
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B
But yeah, just don't you want to make sure that you're not encouraging only the five stars to leave. You want everybody to participate so you don't get into this argument of whether or not you're curating or you're only getting certain people to respond and you know the end result is, yeah, sure.
- [13:50]
A
If you love my service today, my name is Emma. If you hate it, it's Ryan.
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B
Perfect.
- [13:55]
A
But okay, I got it. You're my attorney, I come to you, I say, ryan, I need to have a review sourcing process for my business to make sure that what I'm doing is legal and compliant isn't going to get me sued. What are some things that you tell me that need to be in that process?
- [14:14]
B
Very clear language on, like what you're asking the consumer to do. Okay, so emails are a great way to do it. You know, someone buys a product kind of like the ticket or card we were talking about. Hey, we hope you loved our product.
- [14:28]
A
Don't forget to review your exposure experience here.
- [14:31]
B
Exactly. You're going to want on the back end some sort of tracking to figure out, like, who's responding. If you are incentivizing these people to do something, you have to figure out like who's actually probably used. So you're going to want something on the back end as well. So you're tracking, like, who you're actually, who is being incentivized and who's not. I mean, this gets more complicated the more mature your brand is. Because at the very beginning you might be incentivizing and then later on you're not incentivizing.
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A
Bigger companies have whole customer.
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B
Exactly.
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A
Officers just to police all of this.
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B
Exactly.
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A
I'm a small brand, so what should be part of my process?
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B
Yeah. So you're going to want probably a link or something embodied in that email or something to track who's incentivized and not. And then you're going to need a.
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A
Whether they're incentivized or not. And then you're going to need a.
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B
And then you're going to need a process to figure out like where those reviews are landing, how are you incorporating them onto your website. And the reason that's important is because you're going to need that material connection disclosure. And like we said before, the more mature the brand is who's incentivized, who's not that. Yeah. No, not more important.
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A
Rare. Complicated.
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B
Yeah. Because. Because most brands or companies do not want to put material connection disclosures on something that they don't have to.
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A
Okay.
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B
And then if they're all mixed together, how do you figure it out? And it can be somewhat of a nightmare.
- [15:48]
A
Okay, this is all good. And so how long do I need to keep the review data for the ftc? So let's say I'm no longer selling X supplement. It didn't do as well as my other supplement. So I don't want to spend resources and money on it anymore.
- [16:06]
B
That all depends on your document.
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A
Okay, what do you recommend? So I take the offer down. I can get sued for how long for it? Like how long do I keep all this information?
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B
You have a four year stash of limitations under Section 5 of the FTC Act.
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A
Four years.
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B
Unless your document retention policies. You don't have to. Until you are a notice of a lawsuit or an investigation, you don't have to keep anything.
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A
Okay, so I take the product down.
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B
Correct.
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A
I get rid of all the information. FTC sends me a CID on it.
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B
If you have a documented and I.
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A
Just say hey, this, I haven't been selling this product for six months. We got rid of everything that you.
- [16:43]
B
Are complying with your own internal policies and they're in.
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A
So I need to have my own internal policy that says within six months get rid of everything, burn it all. Got it. Understood. Thank you, Brian.
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B
Yeah, the problem with that is your creative team is going to hate you because you're going to repurpose some of this creative. Like think about all the stuff that goes into. But I can't repurpose building not the reviews, but everything surrounding it. So like, what are you going to be doing? Like snipping video reels from, you know, individual people and then discarding that but then keeping the.
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A
Depending on the business. Right.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So, okay, so if you had to sum up reviews and testimonials in two paragraphs for the average direct response e commerce brand, what would you say?
- [17:26]
B
Consumer reviews unincentivized. No duty to police. You can so long as you have like a UGC policy in place. Use them. Use them how you want. The second you start incentivizing people, it's going to be a testimonial. You need a material connection disclosure. It needs to be clear, conspicuous, and it needs to be in close proximity to, however, wherever you're using those testimonials. And do that, you'll be fine.
- [17:52]
A
Understood. Don't wait for a takedown notice. Ryan and I created for you a GET compliant review guide. This is going to help you clean up your reviews and protect your reputation legally. Download it free at The Visionary Vault www.specialopspodcast.com. real reviews, real compliance, real protection. Thank you, Ryan.
- [18:16]
B
Thanks, Em.