London Road Fire is a personal blog written and edited by me, William Lerner. I accept forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions and other forms of compensation such as affiliate links to products and brands I believe in. I will always give my honest opinions regardless of compensation.
I want to make it clear that I’m not always paid for advertising and promoting the brands I work with, and they don’t always have control over what I write or produce. However, the law states that I must describe these posts as *Advertorial features* or tag them with the #ad hashtag regardless. Some advertisers ask for disclosures to be worded in a specific way. I will work with them to make this as clear as possible and link to this disclosure statement for more information.
Transparency for blog readers
For further clarity I have the space in my blog posts to explain the compensation I have received in more detail. I do so in a disclosure statement at the bottom of my advertorial feature blog posts. When I share my blog posts on my social media I will use the ‘AD’ in my posts.
Transparency on social media
Where I am working with a brand on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TripAdvisor or Pinterest I will use the ‘AD’ prominently in my posts to show there is a paid or unpaid relationship with a brand.
Transparency on video
On Youtube I will use Youtube’s ‘Includes paid promotion’ notice at the beginning of all my videos where there is paid or unpaid relationship with a brand. I also provide a more detailed disclosure statement in the video description to explain the compensation I have received. When I share my videos on my social media I will use the ‘AD’ in my posts.
Ongoing commitment to transparency
I have always been committed to disclosing my relationships with brands; paid or unpaid. However, in the past I have used a few different terms and methods of disclosure. Following the new guidance I want to standardise my disclosure policy.
Perviously, I have disclosed paid or sponsored content within the first few sentences of my blog posts as well as with a disclosure policy at the bottom of the post. The terms used include: collaborative; invited to review; sponsored; hosted; gifted; and similar phrases that I felt went some way to explaining that not all relationships were paid in cash.
Going forward, content like this will be disclosed as I have set out above in the three sections on transparency on my blog, social media and videos. Please remember that *Advertisement feature* or AD does not necessarily mean I have been paid money for the promotion.