Flogging

Following my earlier post about corporate blogging, I thought I'd better give a bit of attention to so called flogging. Often mentioned in the same breath as astroturfing, a flog is a blog which which has been set up by a company to promote their product or service, but which does not make its promotional origins clear to the reader.

Historically, corporate attempts to exploit the blogging format in this way have backfired. Back in 2006, PR agency Edelman got in trouble for setting up flogs for Walmart. The graph below, taken from themeasurementstandard.com, illustrates just how much negative PR the exercise generated for Edelman (red means bloggers saying bad stuff about Edelman - click for a larger image).
















Shortly after this debacle, marketing company Zipatoni and their clients Sony were widely derided for a cringeworthy flog site and viral video, while McDonalds were pulled up on two flogs which accompied their 'Monopoly' promotion. All of these sites have since been pulled.

In May of this year, the practise of flogging was made illegal in the UK under the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (pdf). The new regulation outlaws “Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer”.

And yet some marketing types still consider astroturf and flogs to be valid marketing tools and just another form of advertising. We are, the argument goes, already subject to so many misleading messages in our media, and flogs are really no different - The important thing is to be skilled in recognising when people aren't who they say they are.

Hmmm, maybe these people have a point. Lets test our skills in spotting astroturfers by having a look at this blog post. See if you can spot illegal posts by Carphone Warehouse's representatives in the comments section. Now imagine yourself as director of Carphone Warehouse and feel the rage.

Surely in an era of corporate openness, this kind of thing is bad form whichever way you look at it? Given that its probably just a matter of time before you're smoked out, can flogging or astroturfing ever be a good look for a company or PR agency? Comments please!!