Trendsurfing: Flogs (The Times)
By David Rowan
Be careful what you believe on the internet: there's a growing chance that you are being hoaxed by a cynical PR firm. Just as the blogging explosion was teaching us about "vlogs" (video blogs) and "moblogs" (mobile blogs), along comes yet another trend that is far more pernicious. A "flog" is a fake weblog which purports to chronicle an ordinary consumer's passion for a business or product, typically without the company behind it declaring an interest. It is a scandalously dishonest practice, yet the number of flogs continues to grow as corporate marketers seek ever more manipulative ways to influence our spending.
Take Laura and Jim, an ordinary couple who recently drove a camper van across America and stopped over for free each night at the nearest Wal-Mart car park. Their likeably amateurish online travel journal, Wal-Marting Across America, chronicled all the decent, hard-working Wal-Mart employees they encountered during their stopovers, all of whom seemed to have heart-warming stories about the company. Lo and behold, the couple turned out to have been paid by Wal-Mart's PR firm, Edelman, and folksy Jim was revealed to be a professional Washington Post photographer. Last month, Laura used the blog to come clean, admitting that she "should have done a better job" telling her story.
Since then, Edelman's fingerprints have been found all over other related flogs. "Working Families for Wal-Mart" claims to be a grassroots advocacy group focusing on "the positive contributions of Wal-Mart to working families"; the PaidCritics.com blog sets out to "expose" union employees paid to "smear" the retail chain. Typical postings attack activists for denying "working families" cheap Wal-Mart prescriptions or half-price baby food. Only after contributors' identities were recently exposed did the blogs belatedly acknowledge that posts were written by... ahem... Edelman staff.
How widespread is the trend? It is hard to tell, as the floggers are hardly looking to admit their duplicity. But there is an awful lot of fake amateurism out there, from the widely viewed YouTube video clips by "lonelygirl15" - exposed as a professional actress - to the marketing agencies that will pay ordinary bloggers to talk up clients' products in their everyday musings. One such agency, PayPerPost, claims it pays bloggers as much as hundreds of pounds each month simply for writing their "their honest opinions" about sponsors' products. Their honesty, clearly, never compromised by that commercial relationship.
So here is Trendsurfing's list of shame, highlighting some of the brands trying to gull us with flogs. McDonald's is on it, for using a fake amateur blog to get people talking about a French fry apparently shaped like Abraham Lincoln's face. ("Haven't had much time to learn this digital camera softwear [sic]", apologises its ever-so-awkward author, who signs himself "Mike". The fry turned out to be moulded in polyurethane plastic.) Coke is on the list too, for promoting its Zero sugar-free brand with a blog celebrating the benefits of life's "zero" moments, such as "music festivals with zero crowds". Captain Morgan rum, too, has ill-advisedly gone flogging, as, we understand, has 7Up. Naughty naughty.
And no, this column has not been paid to mention any of the above products. Although you're just going to have to trust us on that.
(The Times Magazine, November 11 2006)
Be careful what you believe on the internet: there's a growing chance that you are being hoaxed by a cynical PR firm. Just as the blogging explosion was teaching us about "vlogs" (video blogs) and "moblogs" (mobile blogs), along comes yet another trend that is far more pernicious. A "flog" is a fake weblog which purports to chronicle an ordinary consumer's passion for a business or product, typically without the company behind it declaring an interest. It is a scandalously dishonest practice, yet the number of flogs continues to grow as corporate marketers seek ever more manipulative ways to influence our spending.
Take Laura and Jim, an ordinary couple who recently drove a camper van across America and stopped over for free each night at the nearest Wal-Mart car park. Their likeably amateurish online travel journal, Wal-Marting Across America, chronicled all the decent, hard-working Wal-Mart employees they encountered during their stopovers, all of whom seemed to have heart-warming stories about the company. Lo and behold, the couple turned out to have been paid by Wal-Mart's PR firm, Edelman, and folksy Jim was revealed to be a professional Washington Post photographer. Last month, Laura used the blog to come clean, admitting that she "should have done a better job" telling her story.
Since then, Edelman's fingerprints have been found all over other related flogs. "Working Families for Wal-Mart" claims to be a grassroots advocacy group focusing on "the positive contributions of Wal-Mart to working families"; the PaidCritics.com blog sets out to "expose" union employees paid to "smear" the retail chain. Typical postings attack activists for denying "working families" cheap Wal-Mart prescriptions or half-price baby food. Only after contributors' identities were recently exposed did the blogs belatedly acknowledge that posts were written by... ahem... Edelman staff.
How widespread is the trend? It is hard to tell, as the floggers are hardly looking to admit their duplicity. But there is an awful lot of fake amateurism out there, from the widely viewed YouTube video clips by "lonelygirl15" - exposed as a professional actress - to the marketing agencies that will pay ordinary bloggers to talk up clients' products in their everyday musings. One such agency, PayPerPost, claims it pays bloggers as much as hundreds of pounds each month simply for writing their "their honest opinions" about sponsors' products. Their honesty, clearly, never compromised by that commercial relationship.
So here is Trendsurfing's list of shame, highlighting some of the brands trying to gull us with flogs. McDonald's is on it, for using a fake amateur blog to get people talking about a French fry apparently shaped like Abraham Lincoln's face. ("Haven't had much time to learn this digital camera softwear [sic]", apologises its ever-so-awkward author, who signs himself "Mike". The fry turned out to be moulded in polyurethane plastic.) Coke is on the list too, for promoting its Zero sugar-free brand with a blog celebrating the benefits of life's "zero" moments, such as "music festivals with zero crowds". Captain Morgan rum, too, has ill-advisedly gone flogging, as, we understand, has 7Up. Naughty naughty.
And no, this column has not been paid to mention any of the above products. Although you're just going to have to trust us on that.
(The Times Magazine, November 11 2006)
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