Photo: Kristin Wolff (CC BY 2.0)

Have you been waiting for the biggest media outlet in the country to finally call and profile your company or business? But it just doesn’t happen? No problem, there’s a solution. You too can finally come out on top.

Have you ever interviewed yourself? No? Then it’s high time! Put some money in your pocket and go straight to the RTL editorial office, or the advertising company IP – basically it doesn’t matter, because they sit in the same offices, have the same phone number and can barely tell each other apart.

If the sum is right, your own interview will be published without any problems in the form of a completely normal RTL article. The good news: you can spread whatever you want! Advertising for your company, some half-truths about a topic like the economy or climate change… it doesn’t matter.

Gift game: Find the „Sponsored Content“ clue

The „Chief Strategist“ of Quintet Private Bank, Nicolas Sopel, shows you how it’s done: The header image is - of course - him. The headline reads: „The world in 2024: Global investment outlook“. So now you get the impression that RTL has interviewed an expert on financial developments. The text also looks like an interview. The font and layout are exactly the same as in all the other articles. As in an RTL interview, there are questions in bold, followed by paragraphs that seem like answers. Only later do you realize that the bold is very arbitrary and that the whole thing is a completely self-written text.

Did someone say advertising here? No - it’s in the column on the far left.

The practical thing is: With such a self-portrait, you don’t need to be afraid of critical inquiries. You now think: There are no critical inquiries at RTL anyway! So where is the difference? A very apt observation. And yet, with a complete self-staging, you simply have much more freedom to set a topic yourself. Maybe it’s also the case that you sat around for a long time waiting for an RTL interview request that simply never came. If that’s the case, then you’re paying for the long-awaited visibility. And not as an advertising banner on the edge of the page, no! But as a completely normal article in all the other RTL articles.

Another mystery: What do you see here? Objective articles or „sponsored“ Lalux advertising?

The nice thing is: As an RTL article, what you’re blabbering about suddenly appears in a light of objectivity and neutrality. It’s press. It’s not written by the press, but it looks that way. To make sure that the advertisement doesn’t stand out so much, Mr. Sopel inserts a few quotes from Greek philosophers into the first paragraphs, which he probably learned by heart in the 5th grade. „I know that I know nothing.“ After all, it is obvious that the good old Socrates, as a Hellenic genius, already meant the FinTech industry and the investment business. Simply profound.

Does all this fall under the category of surreptitious advertising, which is actually prohibited by law? But where does it come from: There is a small hint above that it is „sponsored content“. The inattentive readers will not see this, but legally RTL is - hopefully?! - on the safe side, its pockets are full, and the authorities have not said anything so far. A profound philosophical saying fits this, which our RTL1 editors used for their doctoral thesis in philosophy at the time: „What I don’t know, doesn’t make me hot“. But then everything is cool.