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Pinstripes invading blogosphere: Commercial blogs, execs' journals raise suspicion
(Chicago Tribune (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Feb. 12--Blogs have gone corporate, raising doubts about the credibility of a fast-growing Internet innovation once used primarily for private thoughts.
Business honchos from Donald Trump to General Motors executive Bob Lutz are among those embracing the new online journals, to the dismay of some blogging purists skeptical about the authenticity of such from-the-top viewpoints. The same worries have arisen as Wrigley, McDonald's and Boeing, to name a few, churn out interactive diaries aimed at generating word of mouth about the goods and services they sell.
The upshot is a growing backlash against fake blogs launched for commercial purposes -- dubbed "flogs" -- as well as suspicions that corporate executives rarely write the entries attributed to them.
Automaker Mazda has drawn criticism for inventing a 20-something blogger who praised one of its sporty sedans in fictitious postings. Web marketers have offered secret payments for bloggers willing to tout certain companies. And at least one Internet consultant openly advertises ghostwriter services for bigwigs too busy to produce the content in their blogs.
At the same time, freewheeling communication via blog has gotten a handful of employees fired by bosses eager to control the flow of company information. Regulations for publicly owned enterprises have posed special challenges for would-be corporate bloggers as well.
"You don't have control over it, and a big company has to weigh those risks," said Rudy Privitelli, a marketing executive at Mazda, which retreated from blogging after coming under fire for its sham entries. "There aren't any rules. It's kind of like the Wild West."
The debate over acceptable standards for corporate blogging highlights the broader issue of whether information on the Internet can be trusted, even as the mainstream media face questions about their veracity.
GM's Lutz said he started blogging to correct what he considered inaccurate reporting about GM products in some of the biggest U.S. newspapers.
"I have this innate desire to correct falsehoods," said Lutz, the automaker's vice chairman. "What blogging does is it gives the corporation a voice: 'The article says such-and-such. The truth is this.'"
Similarly, blog advocates express confidence in their ability to sift truth from deception. And bloggers have succeeded in unmasking some obviously phony blogs such as Mazda's.
'They've all got an agenda'
But not everyone thinks the medium's ability to self-police can overcome more sophisticated put-ons, or identify covert conflicts of interest.
"A lot of this stuff that masquerades as honest information is being supported by somebody," said George Harmon, a business journalism professor at Northwestern University. "They've all got an agenda, and a lot of times it's hidden. This is a new way of delivering the same old Shinola."
Nevertheless, corporations are expected to keep on blogging, seizing the new opportunity to communicate with customers and employees in a first-person, conversational style, as well as to advance their marketing strategies. Some bloggers definitely have connected, such as the organic dairy farmer whose manure-tinged musings have struck an authentic chord on behalf of food marketer Stonyfield Farm.
"This is not some sort of fad," said Derek Gordon, marketing director at the Technorati blog search engine. He estimates the number of blogs is doubling every five months worldwide, surpassing 26.9 million at last count, including thousands of corporate sites. Employees at some of the biggest technology companies, including IBM and Microsoft, have launched blogs by the hundreds.
It's still a young medium. Blogging caught on in earnest only five or six years ago, and corporations started experimenting with it no more than two years ago, according to Charlene Li, analyst at Forrester Research, a technology trend spotter. "The hard part isn't the technology, it is the mind-set. This is a very different way of doing business," Li said. "Everyone's trying to do the same thing and have a unique voice on the Internet."
For any corporation, it's a balancing act.
"Companies are looking to be perceived as more fluid and flexible," said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek Inc., which tracks blogs. "Those goals are often at odds with the very real protocols within companies."
For example, Blackshaw noted, "There is clearly a no-fly zone about criticizing the brand." Indeed, employees from Google to Delta Air Lines have claimed they lost their jobs for unapproved blogging that involved their employers.
Both Trump and Lutz say they allow critical postings on their blogs. The comments "have to be really extreme" to be edited out of Trump's Web journal, said Michael Sexton, president of Trump University, who works with the real estate magnate.
Business blogs perform better as soapboxes than as sales or corporate communication tools, because of the doubts they engender, Sexton said. "People are increasingly skeptical about what they read on the Internet."
Many of the postings on GM's FastLane blog come from die-hard fans of the vehicles. Lutz and other executives who contribute to it keep the tone positive. But the occasional commentary accuses GM of making "PR pushes" or denounces it as "an almost-bankrupt loser."
Typically, though not always, GM public-relations executives preview Lutz's posts, which he writes mostly on his BlackBerry hand-held, he said. Similarly, Trump dictates his entries to a trusted aide, who types them "almost verbatim," Sexton said.
Not everyone believes executive blogs ring true. Though she "can't prove it," Internet consultant B.L. Ochman said, "I'm 1,000 percent sure the GM blog wasn't all written by Bob Lutz."
On the contrary, Lutz said, his entries are "unsanitized" and straight from the heart: "It destroys this negative image of GM as a faceless company run by robots. This guy's alive. Tells it like it is."
Some share too much
Naturally, executives can reveal too much for their own good. Paul Purdue kept blogging about his personal leadership failings throughout the collapse of his iFulfill e-commerce shipping service last year. "He gave every gory detail," recalled Ochman, who advised iFulfill. "That was too much sharing."
At the other extreme are "character blogs," where invented advertising icons mimic the chatter of genuine bloggers.
Wrigley created phony postings related to an ad about shoppers tussling over Juicy Fruit gum in a checkout line. As in similar examples such as a pirate blog from Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, no one could mistake the Wrigley postings for a bona fide conversation.
Critics raise aesthetic issues about such efforts, however.
"It is kind of galling that you take the same lame marketing message and shove it into a blog," noted Dan Buczaczer of Reverb, a division of Publicis Groupe in Chicago.
Another tack has inspired even more cynicism: The practice of paying bloggers to tout products or services. A Web marketer known as USWeb pays $5 per mention, and some bloggers have signed on to pepper the Web with testimonials, while never disclosing their compensation deal.
To some, such practices reflect an unsettled period in the Internet's development. Blogging is just one way for organizations to harness the Web's huge potential, discovering pitfalls mostly by falling into them.
At Boston University's College of Communication, Associate Dean Tobe Berkowitz sees a steep learning curve ahead.
"The risk is that misinformation, disinformation and just plain lies can take on the aura of news and truth," Berkowitz said. "What you want is open, honest, credible information. The degree of difficulty is like the Olympics."
gburns@tribune.com
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