Mazda’s Blogging Mishap
Friday, October 22nd, 2004 by MR
Yesterday, Matthew spoke of companies jumping on the blogging trend much like they did with e-commerce shops years ago. In the comments I mentioned that the difference between the two online “eras” is that with blogging you know much more quickly if you are going to be a success or not. By accident I have found the perfect example and it happened this week.
BL Ochman caught an interesting site made by Mazada, a fake blog or pseudo blog if you will. Here are her thoughts:
Mazda blows it big-time with a fake blog HolloweenM3 that includes not one but three Mazda commercials disguised as videos found by a blogger on public access TV. The lastest video, titled Phantasmagoria, shows a bunch of 20-somethings riding around listening to heavy metal music in a Mazda with some ghouls.
It would be funny if it was run as a TV ad. It’s just stupid in a fake blog.
And you can bet it cost Mazda a gazillion dollars.
Other people in the industry caught wind of the blog as well and felt the same sentiments as Ochman. Funny I thought because if these people didn’t think the blog was going to be successful then there is a good chance that it wouldn’t be successful at all.
I wanted to provide a Business Logs analysis of the site and went to go visit it today, but it was gone. Gone as in it doesn’t exist anymore. There are no previous pages showing. Nothing. I couldn’t even find a Google cache of the site. This is probably the quickest I have seen the blogosphere impact a corporate blog ever. Hopefully Mazda has learned its lesson and will not make the same mistake again.
Corporations who view blogs as marketing gimmicks will quickly find that they are wasting both their time and money with them because the blogosphere does not tolerate this kind of behavior. The market has spoken and Mazda has done nothing but lower its reputation and waste money by trying to exploit a medium that they don’t understand. Bravo.
Reader Comments
5 Responses to “Mazda’s Blogging Mishap”
I think blogs can be used as a marketing gimmick as long as a company doesn’t disguise it as something else.
Let’s not forget that whatever happens in a company, happens for the sole purpose of increasing sales. Blogging may not be a place to promote products directly, but it certainly has an effect on sales indirectly.
This blog is a prime example of just that. How would your consulting business be doing if you DIDN’T have a blog.
Actually, thinking about it again, blogs fall onto that fine line between marketing and public relations gimmicks. Blogs should used to better a company’s public image but only if that means that public image will better sales. I mean isn’t that the motive behind a PR initiative in the first place? Everytime a company publically makes a donation, it’s saying to everyone, “Hey look, we care so buy from us.”
In Mazda’s case, I believe they should have been a little less obvious. Being caught in a lie like that really damages them. If they admitted that they were real commercials in the first place, I bet no one would have noticed really. As damage control, they should have apologised and admitted they were misleading their readership. People can be surprisingly forgiving.
Come to think of it, a blog like that would be a good test bed for their commercials before they go public on TV and radio.
Either way, any press is good press, IMO.
October 23rd, 2004 at 5:44 am
Phoat: This blog is a prime example of just that. How would your consulting business be doing if you DIDN’T have a blog.
I don’t pretend to speak for the Business Logs crew, but there’s a difference. This blog is here because it is part of their core business. There is nothing gimmicky about this blog at all.
Phoat: Come to think of it, a blog like that would be a good test bed for their commercials before they go public on TV and radio.
If they wanted to use it as a test bed (they may or may not have — and we may never know), I can think of at least 3 or 4 different strategies they could have used that would have been better than creating something fake.
Most people see through fake — corporate blogs (even ones focused on a product/advertising) have to be real, not BS.
October 23rd, 2004 at 2:58 pm
Well as Derek mentioned I don’t think it’s fair to compare our site to other companies simply because one of our core services involves blogging so not having a blog would be a little more than ironic.
Blogs can and should be used for marketing. However, traditional marketing just doesn’t work with them. There is a certain way to go about things and Mazda obviously went the wrong way about it.
October 23rd, 2004 at 6:42 pm
I guess we should give Mazda credit for reading blogs, noting that bloggers thought the idea sucked, and pulling it.
Maybe their agency was looking at blogs as a new, fast, cheap kind of focus group. But fake anything will be outed and it makes you wonder what else the company says that’s fake. Like what a great car they make???
October 23rd, 2004 at 9:00 pm
I think blogging is a great way of communicating with your customers more than anything else. Forget the marketing angle and just think that its a new way your customers can get a hold of you and have their say. GM have blogs so I see the rest following suit.
March 26th, 2005 at 7:23 am
Add Your Comment
Comments are moderated because spam's not tolerated.
