Cool Marketing Thoughts

I haven’t got an official reply yet from Franky about the campaign for Fanta. He did reply on my other emails, the one I sent him with a URL to my blogpost, and the one in which I said he was welcome to inform me of any future actions.

Franky said he learned that he had to inform us (the Blogstorm core bloggers) sooner, saying there was another list of 5 bloggers that were meant to be informed of this campaign, a list I was mentioned on, and so were Maarten Schenk, Shoob , Peter Forret and Netlash . He said he regrets to have launched the online buzz on Friday, indicating that this would be the reason for the delay in information and follow-up. He pointed to his client, Fanta, and said that the official communication had some delays in it, causing his actions to be delayed too. I understood. I know corporate talks ’sometimes’ take time.

I was satisfied with his excuses and prepared to leave the matter for what it was. Even though it sounded like ‘impromptu crisis management and damage control’. I wanted to let it go, really. Until now.

In regards to this email and the ‘limited-5-blogger-list’ I want to ask you: what about all the other bloggers that attended the Blogstorm. Where did they go? Not important enough? Why just 5 bloggers, of whom 3 are coincidentally actively participating in the crisis buzz?

In his latest post about this subject, Luc Van Braekel proves that the Carrefour GB supermarket has the cans in promotion and on sale now. Furthermore, the package of the can reveals extra countries that weren’t mentioned in the press release. That just pisses me off. Really. So I’m not going to hold my horses and fire away what’s on my mind.

Why do you regret not having informed every blogger on Friday night? I think, given the circumstances it’s a good thing. You’ve given the bloggers exclusivity for exactly 0 working days, since the product went on sale today. Even better, Luc scanned in a coupon from the newspaper ‘Het Nieuwsblad’, edition of today -Monday-, which means that coupon needed to be sent in before Saturday. Given the fact the bloggers received the package on Friday (and most of them work, so the buzz could’ve only started on Friday night) that takes away almost every exclusivity there was. You didn’t create buzz for Fanta, you created buzz for a mysterious package that was supposed to be delivered. That outdates your planning by let’s say, at least a week.

I had to read in the comments on MarketingFacts that the emails were sent out to all the bloggers, with the extra information about Ogilvy’s campaign. Once again, in someone’s comments. That’s twice the same error. That comment was posted on 11.19 am, a mere two hours after your comment on my post, in which you said:

According to plan – all participants of the blogstorm were all to receive an e-mail with detailed explication of what/how/when today. So, that they could get even more information then the ones selected in the list. Including a ‘thank you’ (!), because this action is clearly a result from your input.

Beside the fact that I haven’t gotten that email, and neither did some other bloggers I contacted, that leaves me with a few questions:

What were we supposed to do with the ‘even more information than the ones selected’, after the original buzz was launched? Join in in the conversation with facts the buzzmakers didn’t know of? You wanted to divide us into two camps?

Of what value is the exclusive information if the content of this ‘highly exclusive package from Asia’ is already for sale in the stores and has even more information on the package wrapping than the information you shared?

Franky continues in my comments:

And my mistake, I’ve should have done it earlier. I apologize for not being as quick as the die-hard blogging community.

That’s rather weak for a guy who gave a presentation on blogging in which he included Nike, Dell and Kryptonite as examples of the speed and power of blogs. You do not have to be ‘as quick’, you can prevent it by acting in time, before the damage is done.

I don’t quite know what to think of the lousy effort to market the bloggers, even if you are considering yourself and Fanta to be pioneers of this in Belgium. Not only is the product overhyped (one can of Fanta, that’s all you get) – you also timed the entire action wrongly. You used the bloggers, and not just a bit. In my eyes you’ve lost a great deal of credibility. You abused the digital word of mouth with cheap promo talks and even cheaper promises. The story you came out with to try to manage the damage is one I can’t really believe for a word.

Either you were screwed by Fanta’s marketing dept. and were unaware of the fact they sent out the coupons already, hereby undermining your entire action, or you take us bloggers for stupidos who’ll just rechew your marketing bla-bla. In both cases I feel sorry for you.

Stop ruining the blogosphere and be more careful. You’re playing with the credibility of your organization.