Toyota Yaris GR4 4x4 Rally going into production.....
Not quite sure why Harris has even got involved?
An 'influencer' (with a few hundred thousand subs on Youtube, a few hundred thousand followers on Insta if it's the guy named above) offered a company a marketing proposal. They weren't interested in the offer made (presumably because they absolutely don't need to give a YouTuber £25k and a cut of sales to sell their suspension).
So what?
An 'influencer' (with a few hundred thousand subs on Youtube, a few hundred thousand followers on Insta if it's the guy named above) offered a company a marketing proposal. They weren't interested in the offer made (presumably because they absolutely don't need to give a YouTuber £25k and a cut of sales to sell their suspension).
So what?
Chris Harris has long standing issues with influencers and I can see why.
Most of them have no integrity or insight into what they are talking about for a start. I’m of the opinion that nearly all of them are using their blogging as some kind of attempt to legitimise their need to pretend they aren’t simply living off their parents money, which gives a false impression to a large majority of their younger viewers.
The offer made was frankly insulting, and comes from an attitude that for too long has gone unchecked, and Chris Harris, an actual bonafide journalist is correctly calling it out.
Soldato
Agreed, that's my view on it.
Rather than some virtuous display of journalistic integrity, it comes across more as a personal vendetta from Harris on behalf of his mates at Litchfield.
I'm absolutely no fan of the 'influencer community' and the constant begging for stuff but all that's actually happened is someone has 'offered' the company something, it was viewed as derisory and they've declined it. That's all that needed to happen.
As I said in my post further up, it’s not just this one incident. Most influencers are inherently problematic, with zero integrity. They are often causing problems for journalists and creating drama, and are deeply unpleasant to be forced into a room with at events. I expect this is a long long line of things that has annoyed Chris Harris, including something being mentioned previously about some influencers offering to fight him at things, this is Chris exposing influencers in general and fair play to him.
He talks about some of the beef here, and it’s only gotten worse since then.
As
He talks about some of the beef here, and it’s only gotten worse since then.
And when they get denied these "influencers" go off on a vendetta trying to damage a company's reputation and threaten them with bad reviews etc.
They have no oversight like real journalists do.
Got no issue with calling it out in general terms, outing one particular person (albeit Chris didn't name him specifically but it didn't take long) whilst you're tagging your mates in the very same post just comes across as it being something personal - whether that's a personal grudge against this particular influencer or a personal favour to Litchfield to tag them in a post that was bound to get attention or a bit of both i'm not sure.
He could have raised a (very worthwhile) discussion about the issue without naming & tagging Litchfield or giving any hint as to the influencer might be, if he was genuinely trying to provoke a conversation about the issue in general but I find it quite telling that he chose not to do that.
He’s raised the issue many a time, influencers aren’t changing, they are continuing their behaviour and if anything are getting worse. MrJWW has simply been exposed as continuing a long long line of bad behaviour.
Soldato
Influencers are only that due to fanboys in comment sections praising them. It gets worse by the day hence why I have stopped following the majority of “youtube, automotive reviewers”.
Exactly. Asking for big handouts like that comes with insidious undertones, because it breaches basic journalistic practice. The undertone being, if you don’t pay up, we will go to your competitor and slate your product over theirs.
Influencers have zero objectivity and that’s the natural end consequence.
Like I said, I don't have an issue with the conversation being raised in general, I just question Harris' supposedly pure motivation for inserting himself into this particular example of it and the way he's gone about tagging Litchfield for exposure and narrowing down the specific individual involved when it was completely unnecessary to actually make the point you say he's raising in general. It's not general at all in this case, he's made it very specifically personal, involved himself and I don't think it's the best way he could have gone about it. He's not stupid and knew exactly what he was doing choosing to address it this way.
Ultimately, it's obvious that when the issue can be turned into an internet witch hunt, it'll attract a lot more attention (and exposure for the company Harris tagged) and gets people all worked up in a way that 'I know someone who asked someone else for a completely stupid influencer deal' doesn't. To me though, that doesn't scream 'journalistic integrity', it says 'i'm going to turn this into click bait so the company i've tagged get more clicks'.
These people aren't journalists though, they're marketers. That's how marketing works - you promote whoever pays you the most for your services. The fact it's 'cold caller' style marketing is unpleasant for those on the receiving end but you wouldn't necessarily expect to hold any other marketing entity to journalistic standards.
It's depressing that so many people don't understand the difference these days and that platforms like YouTube have to start implementing rules where these people have to spell out when they've been paid to say something.
Last edited:
I believe that’s been a law in the U.K for a long time to prevent exactly the kind of abuse and moral issues arising that’s been outlined.
It’s not marketing, its end game is abuse and lies for profit.
Caporegime
And this is different to dentists or doctors who go on adverts on tv and say they only recommend brand x y or z? Do they do it for the love of the brand or for money?
When you walk into a dentist and see displays saying saying, "we recommend oralbcdef"
Is this any different?
People ask other people to promote products for money all the time . You'd think in a world where we are surrounded by technology and 100s of years of brand marketing we would be more than savvy enough to understand that.
Do you really think Kim kardashian loves bearbricks or hair gummys? Lol
When you walk into a dentist and see displays saying saying, "we recommend oralbcdef"
Is this any different?
People ask other people to promote products for money all the time . You'd think in a world where we are surrounded by technology and 100s of years of brand marketing we would be more than savvy enough to understand that.
Do you really think Kim kardashian loves bearbricks or hair gummys? Lol
It's very different to an advert. For a start it's pretty clear when you are watching an advert. Adverts themselves are also highly regulated, have a watchdog and aren't allowed to **** off a rival product (the days of Qualcast and Flymo having a go at each other are long gone).
Caporegime
Is it? You're watching an advert every time you watch an 'influencer' its hinted in the name, if they weren't trying to influence something I.e a choice or decision what exactly are they trying to influence?
Caporegime
It is like that with everything though so I cannot see YouTube changing. Take wiper blades. I have to spend 30 minutes researching the best wiper blades because each website says something completely different. Same when buying a TV. It is just inherently difficult to find a true top 10 best without getting biased junk thrown in.
I think that's why this forum in general is great because it is old school and old fashioned where in most cases people's opinions actually mean something.
Soldato
They should go get a proper job !!!
I contacted one YouTube influencer that was mod'ing his Focus RS, to some crazy levels, to ask if he wanted to fit the best suspension package on the market, that I'm a UK agent for and seller.
His business manager got back to me and said in a cryptic way if I like to supply free of charge and if they had time, but they were very busy, it will get on the "roll call" of parts in each video.
Obviously not as bad as asking to be paid, but I felt that would be disingenuous. I declined, the manufacture of the kit wasn't interested either.
Perhaps an offering of money would have made them less busy!
In the end he never modified the suspension to my knowledge, clearly know one wanted to pay. Which is mad, as it's one area that really needs a mod, more so when you have ten of thousand of pounds of other mods on the car.
It opened my naïve eyes to the world of YouTube "reviewers" they are not reviewing products for our benefit as they claim, and don't offer any valuable feedback just pimping what was free or paid to them.
I contacted one YouTube influencer that was mod'ing his Focus RS, to some crazy levels, to ask if he wanted to fit the best suspension package on the market, that I'm a UK agent for and seller.
His business manager got back to me and said in a cryptic way if I like to supply free of charge and if they had time, but they were very busy, it will get on the "roll call" of parts in each video.
Obviously not as bad as asking to be paid, but I felt that would be disingenuous. I declined, the manufacture of the kit wasn't interested either.
Perhaps an offering of money would have made them less busy!
In the end he never modified the suspension to my knowledge, clearly know one wanted to pay. Which is mad, as it's one area that really needs a mod, more so when you have ten of thousand of pounds of other mods on the car.
It opened my naïve eyes to the world of YouTube "reviewers" they are not reviewing products for our benefit as they claim, and don't offer any valuable feedback just pimping what was free or paid to them.
Soldato
Kinda makes Harris an influencer now on the public perception of that YouTuber...
Harris Yarisgate
Harris Yarisgate
