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Dr. Pepper Tries New Astroturf Method
glh writes "Blogging continues to make its way into corporate America. Dr. Pepper is now blogging to build a community around their new dairy based Raging Cow product by using "key influence bloggers". The key influence bloggers are currently made up of six people mostly in their late teens/early twenties who get promo merchandise as their only form of compensation. In return, they get to "advertise however they want" through their blog. Seems like this experiment could turn into the next "big thing" in advertising-- assuming people are willing to sell out their blog space. Bloggers beware!"
Whenever I post on here expressing my honest opinion in support of copyright laws, Microsoft, President Bush, the War on Terror, Christianity, and other things I believe in, I am accused by slashdot readers of being a paid shill working in someone's public relations department. This isn't the case, but it has made me interested: Is anyone actually doing this? A high modded or near-first post in a Slashdot discussion can generate an enormous number of views, so it strikes me as a great method to get a message across, especially if done in a sincere and subtle manner, and provoking heated discussion. It seems like some corporation ought to think about trying this, rather than a bunch of stupid fake blogs that no one will read anyway.
Definition of payola: The paying of cash or gifts in exchange for airplay. [...] the anti-payola statute was passed under which payola became a misdemeanor, penalty by up to $10,000 in fines and one year in prison.
Seems like the same thing to me, except we're talking about blog space instead of airplay. If I was a blogger who had this proposal come to me, I'd report them to the FBI. Or am I totally off base here?
I think just about every blogger out there would sell out if they were given the chance, atleast once. I know I would :)
I'm sure it won't be long before this form of advertising quickly soils what is reasonably pure right now (at least it looks pure compared to what it will in a year!).
--Thei Antispamist A useless endevor that will cer
I don't have a problem with it. If the blogger states on their site that they are receiving promotional goods from Dr. Pepper, then this form of advertising is about equivalent to banner ads with the little word "advertisement" underneath. Annoying but fair.
Somehow I don't think the bloggers will do that, so ignore what I just said.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
ever been to New York City?
ClearChannel Communications (my current nemesis of choice) has such a strong foothold in NYC it's scary. Want to listen to the radio? Most of the radio stations are run by clearchannel. See a show? They own broadway theaters. See a concert? Irving Plaza and Roseland (among others) are run by clearchannel. Avoid all that and take a walk? They own a good portion of the billboards. Take the subway instead? Sorry, the advertising in the subways (including the new digital billboards cropping up around certain subway lines) goes through them too.
Gives a new meaning to the word "Tentacle," don't it?
Triv
(It's not as scary as what I saw a few months ago, though - a Post Office truck with a big honkin' Microsoft MSN ad on the side.)
there are no boundaries, etc etc. some of these bloggers start to get extremely popular -- popular enough for big companies to notice. an untapped market! there are tens of thousands of blogs and millions of regular readers. the 10 most popular blogs get more traffic than some daily newspapers. the people who write these things are influential, because the readers can identify with them and their daily struggle/musings/etc.
so now the marketers recruit the bloggers and pay them to endorse their product. it seems great at first -- we can have edgy *and* corporate messages. but then someone goes too far. they talk politics or say something in very poor taste and the company's lawyers get worried that they will be identified as promoting this kind of thought/talk/ideology. not good for the company's image, which said company spends $10s of millions promoting each year.
the company implements one tiny rule. and then another slip-up, and another rule, etc etc.
now instead of a "stream of consciousness public journal" you have what amounts to be a person being paid by a company to endorse their product and not talk about "bad things" and it ceases to become what made it so popular in the first place and blogs join other less-exciting media channels like radio, tv, and the pre-previews at the movies.
Dr. Pepper bought advertising space from Fark.com a while back... I guess it was a test for future plans.
Gotta hand it to them for figuring out a way to use the internet to their advantage - I'm all in favor of it as long as they aren't spamming me.
in some cases so far left because of "brainwashing" by educational institutions.
I agree with your post, for the most part... But I strongly disagree with this statement. I am almost 25 (2 weeks from now...), I am very far to the left, but to blame it on my education is just wrong. I was a centrist who thought that the USA did the right thing most of the time, until I graduated and got into the real world. The only religiously oriented book that my (public) high school used for text was a book entitled 'the bible as literature', all of my economics classes (I took 4 of them, which is a lot for an engineer...) started with the premise that capitalism is superior.
How can the fact that I am an anti-(Iraq)-war, Athiest, borderline-socialist now, be blamed on my education then?
The anti-war left is getting censored in our educational system right now. You can call me a liberal all you want, and all the dirty names that come along with that one, I will take it with pride, but I got this way by opening my mind, not through my education...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
This is akin to product placement, and I would rather my favorite actor, Bob Dole, or whoever to casually use a product in my view while not disturbing the plot or whatever else I'm doing.
However, the problem is that everywhere I go, and everything I do is now inundated with advertisements. This is complete bullshit. I for the most part ignore advertisements. Besides the psychological, subconscious affects of advertising. (eg, Product X is a good company because we give back to the community, or simply product recognition), I don't see where advertising has any influence on my spending habits. And the few times that it has, I have felt burnt most of those times.
Here's a list of advertising bullshit that bothers me to no end:
There must be more, I just can't think of them right now.
I guess that advertising is like spam, it exists because there must be some kind of reward for doing it. I ignore it. Word of mouth works fine. Believe me I trust someone I know much more than some washed up actor/athlete/Bob Dole pushing a product on me because they say they like the product. I feel as though ads are insulting, because I can go to a store and evaluate products or ask a sales person, or read up on a product beforehand. Bah, I've gone on too long already.
I don't know why they are bothering to pay people to blog for the Product. You would think they could simply create a simulated teen with a random text generator. All that really matters is that the blog adds to the Google Rank and bumps up search results.
99% of blogs exist solely to promote their creators and their works -- I know that's what mine is for, he said with no trace of irony. If anything, this just gives people a chance to stop droning on and on about themselves for a second. Seriously... I think the blog community is nifty, but honestly I'll be glad for the break from navel-gazing.
PS Anyone need a plug? Paypal me...
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
I don't drink the stuff, but I can guarantee I'll be thinking about it all day *grimace*
Now there's an interesting way to advertise - get your product made the subject of a /. story... we've been had!
Fly, my pretties! Storm those blogs and slashdot them to hell and back!!
This may be the wrong place to ask this question since Slashdot is mostly computer geeks and not marketing geeks, but I'll try anyhow:
Has there ever been a study that shows conclusively that advertising works?
I ask this question because I know that there are times when it doesn't work. My dad used to work for the local phone company in an economics position. At one point a study came across his desk that said that in studies the phone company had done, the rate of advertising for long distance services had absolutely no effect on the rate of long distance calls. But did they stop advertising? No! His take on this was that advertising was so ingrained in the corporate culture that nobody was willing to get rid of it, even if it didn't work.
Now this is one study of one service offered by a local monopoly so it's not anything I'd use to generalize, but I sure found it interesting. Here was a huge company that had seen a study saying that their advertising had no effect but they still kept advertising.
I just wonder how much of advertising is based on sound science. I would imagine that there are situations where advertising does work. If people are unaware of a product, advertising can announce its existence. Another one I'm sure works is advertising sales or discounts. Again, informing a potential consumer of a fact that might change their mind about buying a product. But what about advertising for established brands? If Coke stopped advertising altogether, how much of an effect would it have on their bottom line? Do the costs of their ads pay for themselves in increased sales?
I would love to see fewer ads. I already use an ad blocking proxy so I miss most of the ones on the web, but I still see commercials, billboards, magazine ads, and all kinds of other obnoxious things every day. Wouldn't it be great if someone could prove that most of these ads just don't work? I'd even be happier if they were replaced by more effective, informative ads. I just always have the impression that ads are chosen because the people with the advertising budget like them, not because anybody can show what effect they'll have on sales. Maybe I'm wrong?
A couple of bloggers wouldn't have that much influence on the community as a whole. But it is a low risk way of dipping their toe into another advertising medium.
In any event, it would seem like any savvy marketer would prefer to leak "news" of astroturfing so that a big discussion is kicked off. And seeing all the coverage (including here) that came of it, it has worked.
Oh - I read about this yesterday and happened across them at 7-11 today. I bought the Pina Colada Chaos. It tastes like watered down milk with some sweetener. Nothing I care for, but maybe the under 20 crowd wants watery sweet milk.
-- Remember Johnny,
I've always thought that Slashdot (or any other slash site) could make some money by having "sponsored" comments. Companies could list themselves as being available to be sponsored in comments. When a user posts a comment and marks it as a candidate for sponsorship (presumably by choosing a sponsor from a list), then the company gets emailed the post and dis/approves. For every comment they approve, they pay Slashdot some amount of money that could be split with the poster -- or maybe some amount of money towards a subscription.
The comment would get posted as sponsored so that purists can filter them out. I think it would be generally good for software and web site reviews/comments.
The bullshit thing about advertising is that companies can say whatever they want without backing it up, which means most of us have become very cynical about advertising -- and advertising in turn has become little more than an "awareness" tool. But commentary from users is usually pretty helpful (as long as it's not vague). Just look at the Switch campaign for Apple for a good example.
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a Post Office truck with a big honkin' Microsoft MSN ad on the side.
Actually, the big box of AOL CD's at the local post office is so big it takes up a lot of the working space on the counter. Makes it a hassle to fill out the forms, etc.
Each CD is stickered with something about 'buying stamps online' and what-not. I suppose that's the tie-in that gives AOL permission to have their junk on the counter.
Nope. As best I can tell, most of them are real. This is judging by the registration dates... suchadork.net was registered at the end of July 2002; aboutagirl.org/com was registered in October '01. Sparkley.net was registered in October 2000. Kelleyrogers.com was registered in June '02, but using Godaddy's "private registration" thing which is somewhat fishy but plausible nonetheless. As a side note, she has a Raging Cow button on her webpage. ("The revolution will be homogenized" indeed.) Boymeetslife.com was registered in May 2002. Italianize.com was registered in September 2001.
Make of this what you will. If any of them are fake, it's probably the ones registered last year. The rest of them I'd give the benefit of the doubt.