The Internet has done some wonderful things. It has made the world a whole lot smaller by making it effortless to communicate with people all over the world. Another great thing is that it has made it incredibly easy to become a published author- through blogging. Blogs are an amazing outlet for people to air their grievances, spread ideas, and even just simply vent to friends. The first blog was created way before we understood the meaning of the term. In 1994, Swarthmore student Justin Hall created first blog ever, Links.net. However, it wasn’t until 1999 that people began to hear the term “blog”. At this point people began to hear more about the idea of blogging but had yet to take it serious as a form of expression. The buzz on blogs sparked in 2002 when Heather Armstrong was fired from her job when she began blogging not only about her job but her co-workers on the Internet. Today, we certainly know better however, for Heather it was not so clear the implications of one measly blog post. Blogging is now old hat and everyone seems to have one. Some have even learned how to abuse them! And that is where this post is going to take you readers… into the world of the duh duh duhhhhhhhhh, FLOGS! I am sure you may be unaware of this term but it means a “fake blog”.
One of the first well-known Flog cases was a cute little blog chronicling a couple across America in 2006. Jim and Laura would blog daily about their nightly parks in their RV in Walmart parking lots around America. The blog would talk about the incredible employees at these Walmarts and how great the super store really was. It turns out this was a big old hoax and Walmart hired the two to probably have a miserable tour of all the Walmarts across the country. I wonder if they were really married? Anyways, you would think that people would learn their lesson. A fake blog won’t work! People will find out! Talk about a PR nightmare? Well, it turns out that it happened again, and again and probably will continue to.
In late 2006, a Sony fan site popped up called “All I want for Christmas is a PSP”. The site appeared to be ran by two uber-fans of Sony and more particularly of the game system PSP. During this time, the demand for the game counsel was extremely high and people were dying to get there hands on the toy. The buzz was at an all time high for Sony. The site featured the teenage boys explaining how all they wanted was a PSP. The boys did this through videos in which they rapped and did other cliché things in order to convince their parents for the gift. Not only was the site completely made up and the two boys were “acting”, fake comments were also weaved within the site. Under the alias, “True Gamer”, the floggers made comments such as “best site ever”.
What a great way to get buzz out their! Fans basically taking their own time and effort to make a site in order to express how much they love a product. The idea was certainly good but completely hurt the company. It turns out that Zipatoni made the site. Zipatoni is a marketing company that is known for its crazy ideas and zany use of marketing. They created the site so consumers would take notice and even convince some not-so-bright consumers that it was an authentic fan site. Looks like Sony did not think too highly of the intelligence of their gamers…
This campaign ended up being criticized heavily. People not only didn’t buy the site as a real fan site but they were insulted at that Sony would try to pull off something with little authenticity. The problem I feel (that could have been avoided) was that Sony was not transparent. They did not make it clear that the blog was coming from their marketers. Because they were not transparent, people did not understand the motive of the fan site once they discovered who the real bloggers were. Real fans were left to believe that the whole thing was a scam and their main goal was to almost brainwash people that they needed a PSP for Christmas.
Unfortunately, the videos and the website was taken down after people were outraged so no examples are on the web (other than a few montage-like videos like at the beginning of the post). I am sure we all can imagine the cliché heavy Youtube videos. I think that instead of making the whole idea a waste of their time. Marketers may have been able to leave the videos up and just make themselves appear more transparent and perhaps make it even more cliché. The new and improved satirical website could have really put a Band-Aid on the wounds of PSP fans and also keep them engaged with a new viral campaign.
Although freedom of speech does apply, marketers were attempting to fool potential consumers into thinking that these PSP fanatics really existed. Blogging has really had to develop its own set of rules and guidelines in order to give itself some credibility. This self-regulating that Internet surfers are doing is working pretty well. Like in this case, when people feel that something fishy is going down, they make others known, making it nearly impossible to “Flog” and “Flog” well.
Sources:
4.) http://nymag.com/news/media/15971/
