Coca Cola is trying to buy bloggers with "rent a blog" strategy
Last Thursday (July 3rd), Coca Cola Brazil launched the drink i9 - Hidrotonico, the Brazilian version of Powerade. As a part of the i9 marketing strategy in blogs & social media, Coca Cola handpicked 9 prominent bloggers, custom made their homepage and gifted them a fancy USB mini fridge with the new product to be tested – a reason to blog about.
Read more here :
http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=407
http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=408
Is that Ethical??
Answers (14)
Gary U.
Author: How To Be A Creative Genius (in five minutes or less)
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This is nothing new if you are seeing it as wrong. Check out any major sporting event. Or charity sporting event. I'm betting that there is a lot of "free" coolers in the sports/venue headquarters.
Ralph B.
President at FLARB LLC and Owner, FLARB LLC
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Half the reason why people blog is to get free stuff anyway. It's better than these viral marketing companies that actually place fake paid blog entries in various blogs.
Coke needs to get on to bigger and better projects---like Barq's Root Beer Zero!
Gunther S.
Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer - Heardable, Inc. Mentor, K5 Ventures. Technologist. Advisor. International speaker.
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Absolutely. Not only is it ethical, but Coke is acknowledging and empowering those who represent their brand -- the people. Very smart stuff, and not surprising since they have quite a solid grasp of marketing within the digital landscape.
Andrew S.
2012 University of Denver Graduate. Looking for Policy Research or Sales Entry-Level Position in Healthcare.
First off, I completely agree with Gunther and while I tend to stray away from jumping on board with other people's ideas I can't argue. Second, not only is Coca Cola acknowledging the people representing their brand but they're acknowledging the age of blogging. Generation Y is the blogging age - we talk about everything from our break-ups to our favorite meals (Blogger to Yelp) and for a company to take full advantage of this is about one of the best moves they could make in terms of guerrilla-esque marketing.
I'm not sure if anyone remembers what they did with Coke Zero and blogging back in 2006 but the link below may rattle some thoughts on this issue.
Links:
Its Coca Cola... isn’t it obvious! The company has been the darling of all marketing guys and a benchmark/case study for advertising and promotion companies all over the world… they gave us the modern day Santa Claus as well who distributed Coca Cola in the early 1930s for Christmas (Red and White, do u need any more hints)… this is cakewalk for them!
Links:
Ethics have nothing to do with this - inspiring bloggers or chat leaders or buzz enthusiasts to talk about your product is a small but impactful component to a marketing plan. Hope the product is good! However, unlike some of the other responders, I don't think Coke has been a leader in digital marketing, or an early participant in new avenues and trends in media. Quite the opposite... my observation has been they are quite slow to adopt new avenues. Maybe they prescribe to the philosophy that pioneers catch the arrows, and the second wave lives...
Sajal G.
Chief Executive Officer at Shoogloo Affiliate Marketing
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1), Starting Up (1)
This is conversational marketing, the discussion here on weather it is ethical or unethical is also working favorably to Coca Cola.
Lets look at traditional off line world, you have celebrity endorsement that we are enamored about. Do the celebrity endorsing like the product thy endorse, you know why they endorse .....
Same is the case with social media, much we want to keep it neutral and voice of the people, there will be colored views that will be circulated. The power of the powerful should we say ...
One line answer to your question ... Unethical, but that is the way the world we live is ...
Kevin C.
Digital Media Manager, Web Operations Manager, Project Manager, Social Media Manager, Game Producer
As long as the bloggers agreed to make this so, i dont see any problem, ethical or otherwise. It is good to see that big companies such as Coca Cola are tapping people who are already known online as part of their online strategy. It gives respectability to the medium as a legitimate advertising platform and it empowers actual users of the brand. A win-win situation for both sides.
Gautam G.
HR, Social Media and Marketing
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As long as the conversation acknowledges the reality and the bloggers are not enticed to write only positive buzz - I think it's ethical.
It would be unethical if Coke denied the bloggers were contacted by it - or if there was an expectation of only positive reviews and blogging
Absolutely it is ethical
Clarification added July 10, 2008:
but not relevant according enough because you are targeting not even a handful of people and spending in terms which does not make any sense according to rule and perspective.
Instead you target many people and spend little amount and gift them with new product for their testing
Arnab S.
National Head - Modern Trade, B2B & Business Development at Emami Biotech Limited
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Hi Apurba,
Coca Cola certainly draws eyeballs! Look at the number & content of responses.
It's public knowledge that "most" advertisement are not quite ethical.
I see it everyday, thanks to the scores of periodicals we publish.
Has coke really done something very unusual? No.
Does it harm anyone in particular or the target users in general? No.
Is the USB mini fridge a really big lure? I wouldn't think so.
But it is definitely in great sync with the launched product.
So, the only bone of contention "could be" customising the bloggers' pages.
Even then, have coke "taken over" the bloggers' identities or are they forcing users to insert product attributes on the blogs?
IF they ARE, then it's definitely unethical.
Otherwise, what they have done is a very logical extension of Retail Visual Merchandising, to the virtual market!
Haven't we all seen thousands of coke / pepsi branded outlets with visi-coolers branded & stacked with their exclusive products?
A natural progression I'd presume?
Mirek P.
Strategist, Blogger, owner of OPEN4net (pharma e-marketing) & Blog Ninja (marketing in the blogosphere)
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Coca-Cola is a very shrewd marketing machine
I am curious only if people 'bought' this ads - for me seeing a sponsored blog for the first time kills it forever as next time I can expect some sponsored message that is completely disguised as neutral
Lowell D.
eBusiness Manager | Internet Marketing | Digital Strategy
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One word to describe this tactic by coke - Marvelous!
In the world of interactive marketing, as marketers, we're always trying to find ways where we can get our customers to communicate with each other and in the process propagate our brand.
Enter Influencer marketing. Part of this process involves identifying influencers who will try out the product and refer the same to other users and in the process create a network effect which in turn increases penetration. (See link below )
So, Coke shelled out some dineros, got a hotshot marketing research firm to identify there prominent bloggers and influenced them. I suspect that these bloggers fall within the category of 'Connected Bloggers' which means that they're connected to large online networks of their fans who check out their posts fairly regularly.
I also suspect that they used the influencer 50 model to rank business influencers which involved analyzing the Market Reach, Quality of Impact, Frequency of Impact and Closeness to Decision (see definitions of the terms in the link below)
Could it also be that one of the primary elements in Coke's penetration strategy was to create a flock of innovators or early adopters (see Roger's Innovation adoption curve below) in various online and off line forums and then have a series of tactics to influence and continously motivate them?
It's possible. But, this is an awesome example and I think it falls within the realm of today's innovative marketing where more and more firms are seeking creative ways to get their products noticed. So, it's definitely ethical.
PS : Rediff seems to be a pretty creative website though it's about time it got some sort of makeover. It probably missed the bus in creating some sort of cricket portal because in the early 2000s, all I did was visit Rediff for the cricket news until cricinfo came along. Oh well!
