NHHEMI, of course neither I nor anyone else here can produce the proof/documentation you are requesting. You knew that before you wrote your challenge. But that doesn’t prevent us from connecting the dots that are clearly there.
The problem is with publications … and it’s nothing new. It’s been known for half a century (at least) that a magazine is more likely to promote or speak well of products in its articles if that company advertise with it. Without advertising, most magazines would go out of business so that pressure to be good to the advertisers is always there regardless of the nature of the product. So, when you read a magazine, common sense dictates one take the articles that talk about or otherwise endorse a product or service with at least a grain of salt. To do otherwise is hopelessly naïve.
This used to pertain to exclusively print magazines but radio and TV shows soon adopted the practice and now on-line blogs and e-magazines have joined in as well. This is not an opinion, this is common knowledge in marketing circles (which is what I have my degree in).
Even if a magazine takes a number of products and conducts a ‘shoot-out’ between them, they often will not choose a clear winner or loser as they are fearful of offending existing or potential manufacturers. This type of test is fairly common in car magazines … and once in a while someone has the guts to do a real comparison and determine winners and losers but usually positive things are said about all competitors for the reason cited above. Advertising dollars are the life blood of a publication.
Those BoatTest.com pieces on Royal Purple products appear to be one of the most egregious examples of a magazine that takes advertising dollars from a company (the banner) and then writes glowing reviews of the product(s). Consider the following:
1) The banner is a clear indicator that Royal Purple is paying BoatTest.com for advertising exposure. All by itself this is not an indicator of favoritism … but the prudent person takes it into account each time the brand is mentioned by that publication.
2) There are links to several lubrication product articles in that one page … 100% are Royal Purple products, not a single competitor is ever introduced as a comparison. From a practical standpoint, that is a very poor methodology if you are attempting to find an ideal product for a given application ... unless you believe that RP products are so vastly superior to all others, that none are even worth mentioning (which is silly).
3) The “Related Articles” links seem to be showcasing all Royal Purple products that could possibly be of relevance to boaters … almost as if they were being paid to do so. Hmmm ....
4) No other oil company has a banner on their site – I say that, given the above, this is not a coincidence.
Put them all together and they seem highly suspicious. And, BITOGians are not the only skeptical ones … the Boattest.com readers expressed similar concerns in the comments sections.
G. Greenham: ” Are you guys being paid to advertise Royal Purple products? It seems that every issue has some article about how great Royal Purple is.”