╠ Infotalk? Or just Telstra talk? ╣

I noticed an Infotalk ad on TV a few weeks ago, basically it was another 'Brand Power' style ad however this time for technology. What they basically do is act as a third party and say 'We looked into it and like this company.' The problem with this however is they usually fail to mention 'By the way they paid us to say that.' Of course it is kind of stand out if you're a bit cluey but it does work on some.

On a basic level it is deceiving, it's buying credibility as opposed to actually earning it. To prove how sketchy some of these companies are Gen Y podcast discovered that the company What's New(Not the retail store) ran a product of the year competition where if you got shortlisted you owed them $5,000 and if you won you owed them even more in order to be able to advertise that you won. That's right, they actually ran a competition where if you even placed, you owed them money. Now obviously there is value in saying you won and that's why brands enter and are willing to fork up, but overall it doesn't seem quite as accurate and unbiased product of the year competition when you start to expose it bit by bit.

Now what got me about Infotalk is that it's only done one brand, Telstra. I waited for about a month to see if this changed in any way, see if they mentioned any other brands to give them credibility, however the site still appears as you see it above as just a push for Telstra. I dn't know if it will change in the future but my suspicion is that Telstra may have been responsible for propositioning the brand power group in order to make a brand power that was more suitable for their market.

I personally think some of these ads border on lying to consumers when they make sure to appear to be independant and think something should probably be done about it. What are your thoughts?