you asked for an EXPLICIT answer to whether this was PAID advertising. i'm also not going to tell you that it's not paid advertising in every article because we do not accept paid advertising, notwithstanding the fact that almost every company now asks for it, and if you do not see a company listed as a slowtwtich partner one reason why is if all that company's dollars now go toward paid advertising only.

one thing you might do, if you're really interested in this, is go around and ask each company whether it invests in paid or native advertising. report back here on the forum what they tell you.

Having worked both sides of the fence here - doing the PR/Marketing/Communications for brands in the business, and also at other times selling paid media space (advertising), I can tell you that Dan is being fully truthful and honest with you here.

Most smart brands are trying to work the earned (read free) media exposure on the editorial side of a publication or media outlet. Years ago when I was working at Sugoi as the Marketing & Communications Manager, I set myself the goal of getting some Sugoi apparel, on the cover of Runner's World Magazine. It took me about a year of working behind the scenes, various angles with multiple people at RW, some extensive relationship building, a lot of product sent to a lot of freelance photographers, and a lot of hustling on my part. We did get the cover-shot and, it was a real help to the business.

I've also spent a lot of time selling paid media space in the business as well and the first thing out of the mouths of most Marketing Managers and other Marketers that I am in contact with is, "Can you get us some coverage with a story about us?" It's a default, ask for them! They are just doing their job.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Scott gave me the helmet. And they let me keep it. But I'd point out, that at least in my case, I don't have much trouble getting free helmets regardless. There are some small perks to being a world champion... (#humblebrag)

Based on discussions with Dan as well as with other journalists in the industry who I respect (e.g. James Huang), this is relatively standard practice. James will, at the end of the year, sometimes sell the stuff he has been given and then donate the proceeds to charity or he simply gives it away.

I don't check with Dan about who is or who is not an advertiser when I go looking for products to review (as was the case with Scott; I reached out to them because I was interested in their helmets because of Sebastian) or if companies approach me (as is the case with some other products). And Dan is basically ignorant about what products I'm reviewing or when I will post the review, for exactly the same reason.

Now, certainly, a company may think, "wow, that was a great piece and it was really well received, maybe we want to advertise." Or they may think, "wow, that was a nice promotion and it saved us a bunch of money on having to advertise..." I don't know. I basically want to know as little as possible about how we - Slowtwitch - manage advertising. For exactly this reason.

I will say that I don't like to write negative reviews if I can avoid it, for a few reasons. The first is that a lot of reviews are overwhelmingly influenced by personal preference. If a helmet, for example, doesn't fit well, is that because it does not fit *ME* well? Clothing is another great example here. Wetsuits as well. For example, Orca's old wetsuits (circa 2004/2005) fit me terribly. i didn't realize this at the time, because someone said to me, "Orca wetsuits are the best." So I thought wetsuits just sucked until I got a QR Superfull. I shaved 2min off my 1500m OW time immediately. But I had some friends who loved that Orca suit. So was the Orca suit a bad suit? No. It was just a bad suit for me. And, moreover, it was a bad suit for me then. I had some discussions with the guys at Orca about two or three years ago, when they wanted me to review their new suits for Slowtwitch. I said, "guys, Orca suits just don't fit me..." And they said, "Yes, that WAS true then, but we have all new patterns."

The problem with a negative review is that the internet never forgets. So if I write a review in 2004 that says, "Orca suits are bad suits for ectomorphs," that would have been true. But, by all accounts, it's not true now. But will people realize that change has been made? Maybe. Maybe not.

So I try to be objective, but I also try to be cognizant of the fact that the damage of a negative review is far worse than the benefit of a positive review. This is simple human psychology. Especially because people are so, so skeptical, people automatically assume a negative review is "truthful."

But in my own experience, a negative review is not any more likely to be truthful than a positive review. Almost every product that I've tried and hated has turned out to be a product that someone I know and trust the opinion of is in love with. In almost every case, I'd say that my own personal preferences were at least as much of a factor in why I didn't like something as overall quality of the product.

If I try something and I hate it, is the better outcome for all involved not to simply say directly to them, "hey, this didn't work for me for X, Y, and Z reasons. Maybe consider changing those things?" What good comes out of publicly exposing those flaws?

Now, certainly, if I have a generally positive opinion - "I like A & B & C, but I do not like D & E" - then I think that's a good review. But in this way, I'd say that I want almost everything I want to have a positive slant, because I'm flawed and I'm biased and I'm at least as willing to blame myself as I am to blame a product. Perhaps that's naive. I dunno. But that's the way I look at these things...

I've got a bunch more helmet reviews coming. I've got a bunch of saddle review coming. Some of the saddles are for saddles I know I don't like but which I've fit to people who love them. I'm in the process of reviewing a DASH saddle, which I had no experience with, but which is one of the most beautiful pieces of overall craftsmanship I've ever seen. However, it might not be the best saddle for me. Does that make it a bad saddle? I can't imagine how. It's well designed, well executed, and is truly stunning. The fact that it may not be perfectly mesh to my crotch doesn't really mean much.

Again, this isn't to say that some products don't have flaws. And some are so flawed as to be truly unsafe or unable to be recommended. But again, I don't see that a negative review offers a great solution to any problem. Just look at the Consumer Reports review of the new Apple Macbooks. It seems that it was not actually a defect in the laptops battery life. It was a totally bizarre artifact of the way in which they tested the machine that exposed a very odd behavior - I don't even know that I'd call it a flaw. But Consumer Reports panned the laptops. Now, CR is huge. Apple is huge. The "corrections" here got read. But that's not generally true. Without delving too much into Lavender Room territory, this is an especially acute problem right now.

Anyway, can't please everyone. But hopefully that at least provides some color on the way in which pretty much all of us who write for ST do our reviews.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Really? How about the good being that your readers don't go spend money on terrible shit that sucks?

I think you of all people can choose and use your words well enough to separate criticisms that are personal vs. those that are likely applicable to your audience. And we are smart enough to differentiate between the two ourselves. You think we don't understand that saddles are personal?

It really burns me up when I go out and buy something based on a one-sided review or recommendation -- typically from a friend who is so encumbered by post-purchase confirmation bias they are incapable of admitting to a product's flaws -- only to find a failure point that makes the thing a deal breaker for me. And if someone had only mentioned that potential downside...

On a related note...I smashed up my helmet last weekend in an accident and have been shopping for a new one all week. I read your Scott review and it was so incredibly over the top positive I couldn't bring myself to order that helmet. That review was just too gushing. I picked up three others to test out instead. I guess we just have radically different views on what constitutes an effective and credible product review. And your view is wrong.

something came across my desk this morning. it's from a multisport publication to a robust advertiser. this is off the list of options:

"Guaranteed native content pieces - your words, your images, sculpted by our editors under our by line"

that's a word for word, i shit you not, thing you can buy.

we... do... not... sell... native... advertising. period. i have always resisted this. i am never going to change from this.

the closest thing we come to "native" is this: if you want to advertise with us, and you want to know whether we'll be writing a critical mass of editorial about your product, i'll tell you. i won't waste your time or your money. i'll let you know whether we intend to write about your company or ignore your company. then you'll know that if you advertise with us you'll be supported editorially; and you'll know not to advertise with us if there's an editorial expectation we aren't willing to satisfy.

i also tell all these prospective advertisers that if you're on our editorial schedule we're going to write about your product(s) based on our own sense of their fitness for the industry, regardless of whether or how much you advertise. for those companies reading this who don't know how we operate, now you know how we operate.

so, for those who questioned our integrity in this thread:

- you see what at least one of the other magazines in this space does;
- you see that the author who wrote about insidetracker paid for his own testing;
- you saw that insidetracker has paid exactly zero dollars to slowtwitch;
- you see that native or paid editorial is not a product we well.

if you don't want to buy a product because the review is "too positive", that's your choice.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Well, thankfully, you exist in the world to offset my perspective.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

If you buy a product based on 1 review (as it appears you do from your own words), then you may want to re-think that model.

Hey thanks -- I never thought of reading multiple reviews. That's a good idea.

Stop.

The largest share of my "disposable" income category I spend on products from a very, very niche and small industry -- and within that industry, the products I buy are a fraction of that industry. . These are expensive products but are very important for me and sparsely reviewed.

Here's a very good example. I wanted some very cold weather cycling apparel, mostly for off roads riding, and there were two products on the market for my consideration and for this category at all, really...one was from 45NRTH (the Naughtvind) and one was from Specialized/686. There were very few reviews and only two of them (one per product) were substantive in the sense that it was obvious to me that the reviewer used them personally in the intended conditions, wearing them, etc.

There was a ridiculously positive review for the Spesh/686 product and a fairly critical review of the 45NRTH jawn. Guess which one I bought? Neither. I'm not spending $1k on a product that has one gushing review and one that basically says it's not for me based on personal reasons that, in this case, completely apply to me -- I'm not tall and skinny. By the way, those personal reasons were well articulated, obviously personal, and completely applicable to a broader audience. Jordan Rapp could learn from this graph if he ever aspires to be a real reviewer rather than a hagiographist/idolatrist:

My thoughts exactly.