And now, some straight testimonial.

Given the previous post about compensated brand ambassadors, it seems like a good time to contrast it with some nice uncompensated testimonial, in this case from Ad Giant Client Just Between Friends. I’ve long been a fan of real testimonials, even though my first experience with them was listening to mall intercepts of people sampling “New Coke,” a process that required listening to many, many hours of tape in order to get sixty seconds of positive comments.

But that didn’t sour me on real testimonials. They’re the original consumer review and inherently often carry more credibility than the best stuff in a copywriter’s bag of tricks. Just to be clear, I’m not universally criticizing recommendations from compensated brand ambassadors. I can think of plenty of brands I would happily recommend to friends, and if I were compensated for what I’d glowingly praise anyway, it wouldn’t make sense to turn it down — for me. But for the brand it might. And now, some nice words from an Ad Giant client.