Defending the recently launched Procter & Gamble character blog, Where the Sparkles Girls Get Real, a blog promoting Secret Sparkle Body Sprays, P & G blogger writes the blog “is meant to be just a fun little promotion where the characters on our bottles are played out. This isn’t a blog that is meant to be a way for Secret to talk with our consumers about their likes/dislikes. Instead, it is meant to be a promotional tool where consumers (teens in particular) can learn about the Body Spray scents and interact with the characters. It’s just meant to be fun. Why can’t certain bloggers realize this?”
Conversely, AdPulp’s David Burn isn’t so hot on the idea of branded character blogs writing, “Another fake blog has reared its hideous head. This time P+G is the culprit. I understand, and can even sympathize with clients wanting to jump on the blog bandwagon. But please, will someone from the agency sector please help these clueless marketers do it right? Writing tripe is not doing it right.”
I’m in the middle on this one, having commented earlier on ads in RSS feeds saying, to the effect, where there are people, there will be advertising. Blogging is a new medium emerging from the technorati and expanding to the general public. As that happens, marketers are destined to glom on and experiment with the medium stirring up dust and tainting the medium in the eyes of purists (not David, all those other blogging geeks). This will go on until both sides realize the fight is pointless. Marketers, knowing people use the medium, will increasingly use it as an advertising channel. The Technorati, which we dearly need to counteract marketing insanity, will simply invent the next new thing. As blogs did, that new medium will remain ad free until people, followed by marketers discover it. It’s a cycle which will never end.
