The ‘blogosphere’ is now the hottest place in cyberspace for consumers who want to express an opinion and marketers who want to get in first on a phenomenon that is only going to get bigger.
An online universe, the blogosphere houses the world’s 4.5 million weblogs. Weblogs began as voyeuristic online diaries, with bloggers—authors of weblogs—writing about their personal lives and venting opinions on everything from what they had for breakfast to issues that eventually made corporations like Apple take notice. The computer giant was forced to change the battery for its iPods after two consumers created a weblog and film exposing the “dirty secret” of iPod’s battery which lasted only 18 months and couldn’t be replaced. The website attracted more than 15 million hits worldwide and Apple was smart enough to listen.
According to online branding specialist and author, Martin Lindstrom, weblogs reflect the new MSP (Me Selling Proposition) generation that is overtaking the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) paradigm. “[MSP] is about the consumer, not the corporation, controlling the brand,” Lindstrom says. “‘Me’ is the consumer. I change the brand, I form the brand.”
Digital Media Communications’ business development director Andy Gray agrees: “The most powerful selling of products and ideas is not between the marketer and consumer, but consumer to consumer...The next revolution in marketing is a move from a top-down interruptive advertising approach to a more bottom-up orientated approach using network-enhanced word of mouth. So brands move from a ‘command and control’ consumer communication approach to a ‘connect and collaborate’approach”.
In an effort to humanise their businesses and connect with customers, CEOs and company staff have taken the weblogging diary format to a corporate level, intertwining postings about their private lives with up-to-date company information and tips on product usage.
The innocuously named Jonathan’s Blog, for example, is the blog of Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, who writes about his business philosophies and comments on competitors and industry issues in much the same way he would talk to a close business colleague or friend. And that’s one of the attractions and advantages of corporate weblogs. By keeping to the blogging style of casual, personable, non-corporate speak, blogs cast marketers in a more “real” and approachable light, while the medium itself says the firm is edgy and up to date with the latest trends.
Brands such as General Motors, Nike, Volkswagen, Motorola, Macromedia, Jupiter Research and Virgin have either established or begun experimenting with weblogs. Some are also advertising on popular consumer blogs.
In Australia, Virgin Mobile’s On the House promotion—which gave university students the chance to live rent-free for a year—was one of the first marketing campaigns in the country to integrate weblogs. Virgin Mobile’s web operations manager Simon Hilton says the competition was so successful that Virgin will “definitely use weblogs again because it’s something the user of today really understands and has embraced”.
However, like any other nascent marketing tool, teething problems and mistakes are inevitable, although online, they’re often magnified due to the viral nature and speed of cyberspace. Dr Pepper/Seven Up faced a backlash when it used weblogs to promote its Raging Cow flavoured milk drinks. It enlisted teenagers to discuss the drinks on their personal weblogs, without making it clear they were signed up by the company, prompting one outraged blogger to start a ‘Ban Raging Cow’ campaign.
NetX media director Kevin Walsh says weblogs have an “underground” element that makes them precarious for any marketer trying to infiltrate the blogosphere. “Do it in a subtle way—it’s like marketing to teens,” he warns. “You can’t be too overt because it becomes too commercial in the eye of the people you’re marketing to and you lose the brand equity you were trying to build up in the first place.”
M&C Saatchi’s head of digital David Whittle believes the best way for marketers to leverage blogs is within promotions, through FAQs databases and with investor communications updated regularly. “We have a number of clients who are looking at utilising an FAQ blog to free up their call centres and others are looking at incorporating blogs into competitions,” Whittle says. “Blogs can deliver advertorial without costing anything. But if it doesn’t attract readers it’s basically useless. [At the moment], blogs aren’t used extensively by Australian marketers, although in time it’s likely that they will become a stable part of the marketing mix.”
