Style You Want, Support You Need

I understand Sparkpeople needs to advertise, but I too feel like I was tricked. There are ads constantly popping everywhere on this site, I get it, but this was misleading. I thought it would be an article about proper footware & it was just a commercial. Not cool sparkpeople

Commercials keep this site free so we give to get! You never know, when this info will be useful to you or someone you know!

Probably good for the feet, but yes we were marketed....

As someone who has flat feet and had to wear orthopedic shoes as a kid for the 'condition' I was interested in seeing this commercial. I had a tendon replaced 3 years ago because of damage from flat feet. I've loved earth shoes and the rocking shoes available about 5 years ago. But women's shoes are never comfortable for me, no matter where I buy them. Remember the commercial from Naturalizer that showed women playing basketball in heels? Yes, I can play basketball in my Naturalizer heels but my feet will still hurt.

I wear custom orthotics in ALL my shoes except my Vionics. Their flip flops are the greatest.I have had plantar fascitis and my arches have fallen with age, so I have had to completely revamp my shoe wardrobe over the past few years.

For those who felt "tricked" into watching the video, wasn't this particular video was clearly marked with the brand name on the start page? and "Brought to you by Vionic Shoes, a SparkPeople sponsor" on the page below the video itself. The fine print is pretty fine, but if you look for it, it's there. But maybe some people clicked on a link from an email and weren't aware of the sponsorship. Since so many people use adblockers today (including me), I guess SP has to find other ways of getting their advertisers' messages across.

I don't like getting tricked into watching a commercial in the guise of information.

I am a shoeAholic, so I was interested in that video. I am always looking for cute AND functional. I am trying to find an all day shoe for my daughter to go to Paris in. Her French class gets to go for 11 days, and we both do not want her to look such the tourist in her regular bright green tennies!

I can't believe I was just tricked into watching a commercial. I get this is a free site and they need advertisers but this is not cool. I watch the videos and read the articles to become better informed and I feel videos (commercials) presented like this very much gray the lines of information and advertisement.
How am I supposed to take some of the other information as NOT being just an advertisement for some other product?
If Vionic or any other brand wants to present a video or article about their product it should be clearly labeled as such just like magazines state "advertisement" when there is a full page ad.

Remember. SparkPeople is a FREE web site for us. Ads and commercials help them keep it FREE for US. Watching an ad or commercial only takes a couple of minutes. It's the least we can do. And seeing new products and styles can be interesting.

^That's what I was about to ask. I thought it was going to be about shoes for exercising. Had I known it was a commercial, I never would have watched. Even so, I had it muted the entire time while I watched a video in another tab, waiting for the actual content. Please don't trick us like that, SparkPeople, it's not cool.

Did I just watch a commercial?