Corporate Blogging Screw Up

Last week, I was presenting to a bunch of corporate comms and marketing directors in Frankfurt, who are all clients of Hill & Knowlton's Hiller, Wüst & Partner - one of the largest tech PR agencies here in Germany. Though there's a lot of interest in corporate blogging, Germany is lagging behind the UK, France and many other European countries, and certainly way behind the US.

I shared a platform with another blogger, Joel Cere, who also had some interesting case studies and thoughts. He writes a blog on what he calls Customer Generated Marketing, which I tend to refer to as Engagement Marketing and very good it is too. Check it out here: Beyond PR. He also wrote this article for Global PR Blog Week, which sums up his presentation quite nicely.

I especially liked the video interview Joel showed about the disgruntled Land Rover buyer, who started a blog by way of protest after being fobbed off by the dealer and the company. He even bought up Google AdWords for "Land Rover" to promote the blog, so that people considering buying one would see his problems.

Naturally, Land Rover had no choice but to cave in and give hime a refund and he went off and bought an Audi Q7. Note though that the blog is still there, still getting visits from prospective buyers and still influencing their purchase decisions. Like herpes, a blog is forever - brand owners take note.

But back to corporate blogging, there's another great example here of how not to do things (via Hugh at Gaping Void).

The really oddly named Cillit Bang (is it just me who finds Freudian implications in the name? Yes? Ok I'll get my coat) is a cleaning fluid and has a blog as part of their marketing effort. If you want to see the rather lame attempt at hoping on a bandwagon without understanding the first thing about the medium, you can see it at this address: http://  barryscott.blogs. com - note it's not a link as I don't want them to get the Google Juice.

At best, the blog is pretty harmless, though whoever sold the idea into the client must be some kind of sales genius as I can't imagine how the brand manager thinks Cillit Bang might be benefiting. The idea is the imaginary front man, one Barry Scott, is the blogger and he prattles on about nothing in particular.

But they couldn't let it lie there. It seems that someone using the name "Barry Scott" has left a comment on another blogger's blog (and maybe many more for all we know). The thing is that the blogger, Tom Coates, was writing about something very personal - meeting his father for the first time in 30 years.

"Hi Tom, Always remember one thing. Life is very, very short and nothing is worth limiting yourself from seeing the ones you love. I hadn't seen my father in 15 years until 2 years ago. I was apprehensive but I kept telling myself that no matter how estranged we'd become there was no river to wide to cross. Drop me a line if I can be of any more help. Cheers, Barry"

Tom traced the IP address back to the brand owner, via one of their agencies, who promptly issued an apology, which you can read here.

I don't suppose we'll ever know the full story behind it - misguided enthusiasm at one end to twisted sick bunny at the other. But it's obviously a screw up.

If marketing people (and I'm one of them, by the way) want to use blogs to get closer to customers and engage in dialogue, I think this is a good thing. But you have to do it openly, honestly, humbly and with authenticity. Shabby tricks, faux blogs, clever-clever and short cuts will backfire and bite you on the arse.

And if someone tries to sell you a blog as part of your marketing and communication plans, make sure that they understand what they're talking about. The best first step? Ask to read their blog.

Comments

[Njar]

>Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the author has approved them.

guess barry won't be publishing my blog then.

[Anonymous]

I know who barry scott is, it was never meants to be harmfull. his comment was genuine so stop getting at him. you are so sad for making a big thing out of an honest mistake

[Russell Buckley]

Dear Anonymous

It may well have been a mistake on behalf of the individual. But it doesn't mean to say that this whole exercise in poorly conceived and executed corporate blogging was a good idea - and that's the point I'm making.

The "Barry Scott" moment simply drew attention to a stupid idea, implmented by people who understand nothing about marketing in the 21st Century.

As for me being "sad", I'll leave that for my readers to decide. But personally, I think hiding behind anonymous comments on other people's blogs comes pretty high on the sad scale.

Russell

[Carlo Longino]

Hmm. Funny that somebody says they know Barry Scott when one of the companies behind it had this to say:

"We’re all aware that Barry Scott, the advertising character is a marketing creation and we have been responsible for raising his awareness."