The ‘Free Jacket’ Paradox
There is no such thing as a free jacket. You just may not realise that someone else is paying.
I am a vocal advocate for people being paid - in actual money. You might have heard me talk about this on the Type Two podcast with Matt Barr almost a year ago. There is a broader conversation here - I’ll be writing about steering groups, advisory panels and consultancy in another post - but the ‘content for free stuff’ debate really gets under my skin. Many of the brands aren’t changing their approach on this and that’s because people continue to support the system that’s in place.
And, compounding this, on social media, I’ve seen a disturbing trend where people feel like they have to explain that they haven’t been paid to post about a product they’re talking about. Like it’s dirty to get paid. Like creating social media content isn’t work. Like sharing a product with your audience, and getting compensated for that time is unethical. Stop this please - you are playing right into the brands’ hands.
The Ethics
Let’s talk about the ethics first. There is a blurring here to make payment seem unethical, when it’s really the way the sharing happens that can be unethical. Marketing something that doesn’t work or deliver on the needs of the audience, for example. Pretending that you are not getting paid or that the content is ‘organic’ and it’s just something you use every day that has changed your life, when actually you only received it that morning. There are actual real-life rules on how you should declare free ‘gifted’ items and if something is a paid partnership or an advert for this reason. You can find out more about how the Advertising Standards Agency would like you to navigate these guidelines on their website.
You can also fall into ethical traps if what you are sharing does not align with your values and that of your community. Personally, just some of the things I feel particularly strongly about not promoting are fast fashion brands, air travel or anything that suggests you need to change your body to be a more valuable version of yourself. This obviously varies from person to person, but if you are selling something you don’t believe in or actively causes harm then alarm bells should be going off.
I also have a rule that I don’t take kit that I don’t need because of my sustainability values. I don’t want to over consume and the majority of outdoor kit is not going to naturally return to the earth at the end of its useful life. Its plastics and toxics will be hanging around long after we’re gone or will be burnt leaving toxic residue or releasing toxic gases into our degrading atmosphere.
But I think as long as you are transparent about your brand relationships, are living your values and working within the rules, you are acting ethically.
And, as long as the above is all in line, I’m unsure why being paid would be unethical. Creating imagery, videos and crafting text for posts on social media, on top of building an authentic audience, takes time and energy. Time and energy that many of us don’t have in spades, especially those who are working to make the world a better place around our other life commitments. It often involves using your personal experience and applying expertise from your working career and from lived experience, to provide entertainment and/or information to people. Add to that that it’s so hard to get paid for your time in the outdoor and creative sectors, and you end up in a situation where the only people who can do this type of work for that free jacket are those who are essentially hobbyists. And that is a privilege folks.
Why this privilege matters?
So you might wonder why taking the free jacket in exchange for content, offering to do a photoshoot for free on your weekend or sharing content for exposure matters. Let me explain. Because by you flexing your privilege for your hobby (because if you don’t need to get paid then this is a hobby to you), you are giving brands and outdoor sector organisations the permission to not pay anyone. And from a capitalist business standpoint, this makes sense - if someone is giving you the airtime for free or for the cost price of a jacket, why on earth would you pay? And when this happens over a long period of time, then the companies no longer have budget. Which, by the way, is another way of saying ‘we have not allocated budget to this’. Why? Because you only put aside budget for things you need to pay for. Get it?
So as long as you are working for free or the equivalent of free, you are enabling a system that does not pay people for their time. This is problematic and really needs to stop if we want a more fair and equitable society. And this is not a witch hunt, we’ve all done it without fully understanding the impact or while feeling like we have not had any other choice. It’s about what we do now that matters.
We have another intersection at play here. I work with individuals working on increasing access and representation in the outdoors for systemically-excluded groups. This work is tricky to get funded, especially outside one-off project funding, so work with brands is important. It gets more people talking about the work - get on a brand’s channel = more attention, more reach, more likely to be funded. But it also means that these individuals are the most impacted by the lack of pay, because they are backed into a corner. They are being told to be grateful for the ‘exposure’ and free jackets in exchange for not just their content or time with this brand, but all the work they have put in to get to the point where their project might be promoted. These individuals have (usually) worked for free and used their own money to build groups and offer support to those the outdoor industry has failed. The irony is that brands want to work with them because of this work and still don’t want to pay them. Add the layer of the brands gaining the benefit of being seen to be inclusive by aligning themselves with these individuals and groups, and the whole situation is a lot of ick. And once again, marginalised communities take the hit.
The Nuance
As with everything, there is nuance here. I am not talking about people who do actually need free kit and there are a lot of people who cannot access outdoor spaces or have uncomfortable outdoor experiences because they don’t have access to appropriate clothing.
I, personally, also do take free kit from brands sometimes because - spoiler - I don’t make much money from nonprofit diversity work and outdoor kit is expensive, but I do not agree to create content, post or promote in return for it. I almost exclusively do this with brands who I have other paid work with and I do not take kit that I don’t need. I will also sometimes post about kit I use (often kit I’ve paid for myself) if I love it. This is not a hating-on-kit blog. This is a hating-on-being-given-kit-instead-of-money-for-work post.
I’m also not talking about the free promotion and support of small, ethical businesses who genuinely do not have budget. Hello startup founders and individual creatives - I see you. 👋🏽
And, they are in the minority, but there are also big brands who do always pay for people’s time, and go above and beyond to provide additional support in the forms of mentorship, training, networking opportunities, promotion and much more.
What if I don’t need the money?
I can only think that if you are doing this work for free, then you don’t need the money. Lucky you. So you might be thinking, what will I possibly do with all this money that I don’t need? Sure, I can imagine the dilemma there. Maybe donate it to a project doing good things. There are plenty of amazing organisations making the world a better place. You can see some of those working on diversity in the UK outdoors on the All The Elements directory.
We need to start actively redistributing funds from the big businesses and the most wealthy to support and accelerate social and environmental change.
That ‘free’ jacket - as nice as it might be - isn’t really free. It has wide reaching impacts beyond your social media likes, and the pretty and successful looking Instagram feed. And I can’t believe we don’t talk about it, but we don’t.
Have an opinion? You can share it below in the comments.
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