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.)