Fake Blog or "Flog"

It is somewhat surprising to me to see some recent news related to the use of fake blogs or "flogs" by some major corporations.

For example, recently, one of Sony's PR agencies launched a covert marketing campaign disguised as a blog created by a teenager. The flog promoted the PSP, but was exposed after suspicions were raised over the site's content. The agency created a character and called him Peter. However, under pressure from gamers who guessed Sony was actually behind Peter, the company was forced to post an apology on its website. It read: "Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP - Sony Computer Entertainment America."

Finding out that Sony was behind the site was actually quite easy: the flog domain was www.alliwantforxmasisapsp.com. A quick WHOIS search reveals that the domain was registered by Zipatoni (www.zipatoni.com), a marketing and PR agency based in DC. The list of Zipatoni's clients include Sony...easy enough?

Last October, Wal Mart was also caught while using a similar tactic after creating a blog supposedly written by a couple traveling across the US in a rented RV staying overnight in the supermarket chain's parking lots.

It seems obvious that flogs can do more harm than good in the long run. One of the key rules of corporate blogs is to be "authentic" and transparent. Not only can this type of situation be very embarrassing but worse, it diminishes the level of trust companies are spending millions of dollars to create between their brands and their customers.