Today's John Darko editorial triggered familiar tickles. After I read it, I congratulated our man in Berlin for a piece well argued, meticulously presented and ideally balanced. The audiophile press at large—print, online, YouTube, other—has long been a primary bridge across which manufacturers and consumers connect. Whilst social media empowered manufacturers to build their own bridges to partly/fully bypass or at least augment the established press media, most makers in our sector continue to engage the hifi press for product releases, news announcements, reviews and promotional efforts like interviews and factory tours. As in any other industry, services engaged rely on pay or go away. Even charities need fiscal support or donations of product and labour. Clearly hifi publications and full-time YouTube channels aren't charities. Whether it's advertisers who fund their work, Patreon subscribers, affiliate links or other means to monetize work, support must come from somewhere unless operators are independently wealthy to do it for sheer kicks. And why should it be strange that reviewers as people who render professional opinions get compensated for their work? Judges, competition critics, building inspectors, sports referees, conflict arbitrators, career advisers, Olympic committees and others all charge us for their services regardless of whether we agree with their findings, opinions and recommendations or not. We even expect an invoice for a doctor's consultation when after 5 minutes we're being unceremoniously referred to another specialist. Availing ourselves of an expert's time comes at a cost. Proper adults know this.
John's editorial pointed out strange pride reflected in a recent post about a hifi brand having never once placed a paid ad in 53 years. In a recent ceremony in his honour, their boss then acknowledged how over those same years, his company not only regularly benefitted from but relied on ongoing reviews and other visibility mechanisms of the press. At face value that's undisguised freeloader speak. Pride in beating the system is expected from adolescents and criminals— not upstanding businessmen. Of course realistically the press can't be in permanent pro-bono mode or it would literally go out of business. Hence five decades of ongoing review and news coverage for this popular brand rather suggest that compensation did occur, simply off the public record via licensing fees for the right to reproduce award seals or pull quotes from agreeable reviews. Yet publicly beating one's chest about having never taken out a paid-for ad paints a very different picture. Now the question becomes, why do it?
It's perfectly legit to bypass the audio press in full. Run your own promotions. Have your own employees write reviews. Stay firmly in the lane of your brand's social media. Practice guerrilla marketing. Send out no press releases or show announcements to the wider press to be published. If guerrilla marketing covers all your publicity needs, don't engage diverse services of the larger press whilst leaving its financial support to your competitors. Freeloading and mooching are declassé. Taking open pride in it further implies that brands which publicly support the press with visible adverts are somehow tainted, play the game or partake in underhanded shenanigans. There's no quid pro quo when we hire a building inspector before buying or selling a house. There's neither when we contract a publication to do a performance review of our gear. Either case engages pros who require upfront compensation. It matters naught whether our space makes this currency an actual review fee; an advert out of which a publication pays its contributors; or subsequent licensing fees for syndications, reprints and promotional seals. The underlying principle remains. Professional services cannot be free. It's how capitalism works. And few can move all promotional activities in-house with their own magazine, newsletter or YouTube channel though PS Audio have done all of it for ages. It clearly works for them though isn't free either. Pay simply stays in-house. And that's a very valid point of distinction if one has the requisite creative resources to self-promote. Most manufacturers in our space simply focus their resources on designing and building playback hardware. That still gives us in the wider press a job to do. Thanks for that or my kind would be looking for a gig. Plus, I don't know of an audio brand which hands out freebie hardware on a regular basis. Do you?
So the suggestion of freeloading is another thing. It implies ongoing abuse. Parading it like a shield of excellence to be emulated sinks even lower. That it must be a sleight of hand behind which hide 'off-camera' fees arguably only adds wilfull deception to the affront to ask once more, why bother? It's what John Darko felt compelled to point out. I'm of like mind so just did the same—again. If you're still fuzzy on what all of this was about, scroll back up and read John's article. It's far better written than mine, too…
