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!"

Comments

Re:Astroturfing through slashdot posts?

[adzoox]

I'd agree with your posts - the reason one gets modded down is mainly due to the demographic here at Slashdot. The majority of people here are early teen to mid 20's which tends to be more liberal minded or in some cases so far left because of "brainwashing" by educational institutions.

Don't get upset, I've gotten "flamebait" before, but I often get informative, insightful - the key is to be factual NEVER opinionated about religion and conservatism!

I'll use this post to make my comment as well: I have always thought that personalised/compensatory advertising was the way to go anyway. I think the Sprint Cellular painted VW's and other "ad cars" - which are free leases to the driver for a contractual period are a good idea.

Anyone remember the two auctions on eBay:

One auctioned off their child's name.

The other; auctioned off his bald head to walk around in DesMoines Iowa with an ad on his head

I'm surprised more of those types of things haven't happened or aren't pursued by companies.

An event sponsor gets a lot of press by giving away T-Shirts rather than coupons

Re:Advertising: Nothing new

[Triv]

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.)

Re:Advertising: Nothing new

[hackstraw]

To be honest, I would prefer more advertising like this vs the flashy blinky noisy things all over the fscking place.

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's too much of it in magazines, I can't find the table of contents so I can read what I bought the magazine for.
• Ticketmaster advertises. These assholes are already charging me for the priveledge of buying a ticket, and they have the nerve to charge for advertising space too!
• Endlessly repeating .gif's or flash ads. I've got galeon set up to only repeat animation once, and I don't have a flast plugin, thank you.
• TV music programs where they play an ad between each song
• The amount of ads on cable television in general. What do I pay $40 a month for?
• A local university got $10 million from a car dealership to rent their name out on their new football stadium. I will not buy a car from them ever. If it had something to do with education, fine, but all I read from the car dealers actions is that they already make way too much money.

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.

We're helping plug the Good Doctor as we *speak*..

[Aropax20]

Has anyone stopped to think how this article is giving Dr Pepper a really thorough promotion? I mean, how many times has the product in question been mentioned in this article on /. so far? I heard a theory once that if J. Random Consumer is confronted with a name 7 times in quick succession, it'll stick!

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!!