Check out this interview with Todd Copilevitz, one of the principles of Project Blogger (?), and the marketing firm behind the weblog push for Raging Cow.
Steven Levy says that Dr. Pepper is using a blog & six volunteers to sell its new product called Raging Cow. Doc Searls is quoted in Newsweek as saying that "It seems ironic that a company would want to manipulate a phenomenon that's so generally bent on exposing things."
[snip]
Andrew Springate, a director of brand marketing fellow at Dr Pepper/Seven Up, says, in Junk Food News, the Raging Cow is an unpredictable and mischievous mascot that symbolizes the independence and enthusiasm of the brand's target consumers. The Raging Cow's primary utterance is a primal moo!
[snip]
Given these blogs and their links into camsites, it is rather obvious that Andrew and Todd want to hook Raging Cow into the camgirlnetwork. Tony Pierce said we have a lot to learn from cam girls. Perhaps Andrew and Todd were listening.
Interestingly enough while these blogs link to cam sites they also link to Christian sites such as the Internet Faith Fellowship Crew so it seems Dr. Pepper/Seven Up have their bases covered in the saint/sinner categories in their weblogging initiative.
UPDATE Todd Copilevitz is all over this and accepts my offer to interview him. There are two parts. I'll post the first part and then take down this notice when I get both parts up. Please note I have edited some punctuation, spelling, and syntax in selected spots. It is all incidental and improves the readability.
Todd Copilevitz - Shoot me the questions. I'll answer what I can, but I have to be mindful
that we are just starting with a campaign and don't want to tip our
hands too quickly. Fair enough?
Me - Too be honest I am not that interested in where the campaign is going.
I am however interested in the genesis of it. So hopefully my
questions won't impinge on any of that. If they do feel free to defer
until a later date. If you are interested in such a later interview?
First question: do you or anyone of the primary architects of this
campaign have your own personal websites or blogs?
TC - Several members of the staff have blogs, albeit very odd ones. More to
the point, we've been watching, reading and learning from blogs for more
than a year. This wasn't an overnight process. We are constantly
watching the Net, trying to understand where it is going next. How to be
part of it, not a roadblock.
Blogs intrigue me. They hearken back to the first days of the web, when
everyone who could write code had a page. The link you had to an old
story of mine is a great example. Two bore college guys create a pizza
generator. No biggie. Someone see it, passes it along to me. I wrote
about it and they get famous, kind of.
When we started following blogs early last year it was with an eye
toward understanding what various groups were talking about, how they
viewed categories of products.
In relatively short order it became clear there were several key
communities of blogs. Some are manifesto sites, geared towards a cause.
Others were more personal portal sites. But a big section were kids,
living their lives on line. The degree to which these kids expose their
lives and share details with the world is amazing.
In marketing we always talk about reaching opinion shapers. Yet when it
comes to marketing to teens, few companies acknowledge that teens
themselves help shape other teens opinions. Think about it. How much
advertising on MTV or elsewhere acknowledges the thoughtful opinion of
teens?
In blogs we found a strikingly fresh voice, teens of every stripe and
attitude, articulate, often thoughtful, and reaching an audience far
beyond their local friends. Once we met some of them, and their parents,
I was even more blown away by how sharp these guys are.
With that in mind, when this project came along, the guiding principle
was to respect what they've created. In simplest terms, we give them the
product. If they like it, they'll say so. If they don't, I'm sure
they'll say that too. But, we have no role in what they say or how they
say it.
Me - Can you give me links to these blogs of the staff?
TC - Sorry, I've intruded enough on their personal lives during the research
phase. I promised not to pass those around.
Me - How did you choose these individuals as "tastemakers" or as Andrew said
"those in the know"? I assume that your task was not to choose the target demographic, or
was it? If so why did you choose this demographic as the source material for your bloggers?
TC - As for the teens already selected, I can't go there, except to say we screened more than 300 blogs. Once we weeded out the good from the bad, we applied a strict set of criteria to the people we recommended to the client. DPSU has said previously, this is a drink for 18-24, so yeah, they had to be in the target market.
Me - What was the criteria that you used to pick the 300 blogs? Any chance of sharing that list? What was the criteria you used to winnow down the 300?
TC - Here, check this out. The Dallas Morning News just posted a story from
tomorrow's paper.
Me - I would still appreciate answers to my questions but I'll augment those with questions from the Dallas Morning News story. It reads, "With Raging Cow, the company is looking to the Internet to drive its marketing plan. In addition to the Web logs, or "blogs," Dr Pepper/Seven Up plans to run a lot of ads on major sites. "
Does this mean these "major sites" are not blog sites? Or do blogs get included in the major site category for the purposes of this comment?
TC - No the major sites are not the weblogs.
Think of this in phases. For now we're working with the blogging
community. But at some point the campaign will move into a more vocal
role and use more traditional online advertising.
The question is, how does one form of communication affect the other?
Me - Back to the questions:
What was the criteria that you used to pick the 300 blogs? Any chance
of sharing that list?
TC - No, I won't go into detail. But the rough cut was easy. We looked at the
tone and content of the blog, how well it was kept up, was there any
content that would be inappropriate for our client's product to be in
proximity to, such as porn links, etc.
It's just like doing sampling events. You pay close attention to where
people gather and make sure the environment is a natural place for you
to be. We weren't about to force this into corners of the Net where it
would be out of place.
Me - Sorry to double up on you here. But the mind continues to wonder.
Aimee Deep said 2 days ago that if Arista record execs paid attention
to song downloads on open networks they would know much better whether
an album like Whitney Houston's newest will sell well or not.
In the article it says " If they've got a loser on their hands or even
a few people don't like [Raging Cow], they're really going to be
dissing it," said Gary Arlen, president of Arlen Communications Inc.,
an interactive media consulting firm based in Bethesda, Md. "
How do you square these two things? If the blogging community doesn't "like" Raging Cow will this effect the roll out of the product itself?
Do you have criteria in place to measure any perceived affront from the community because of the way this is being marketed versus what folks might actually think of the product?
TC - Wow. I think Aimee is dead on. But how do you effectively measure that?
I can't speak to the measurements we do for the client. I think if
people will take the time, like you did, to really look at what we're
doing, they'll realize we're not telling anyone what to say about our
product. We're giving it to them and hoping they pass the word. No one
is getting a ton of money so they have no reason to lie on their site
about the drink. As Andrew Springate said, it's the magic of word of
mouth. That's the oldest form of marketing there is, just coupled with
a new technology.
Me - You say you pay close attention to where people gather. That is what I am looking for. It appears as though these kids come out of some gathering place. I suspect that your 300 potential blog list came from a particular community, or subset, of the blogosphere. Can you give me some representative sites from within that "gathering". For instance do they revolve around the technology they use, for instance the live journal community?
TC - I wish it were that organized. We have a great staff, with varying
interest. So for months, in their spare time, they collected sites.
Ultimately we started seeing intersection points. Given enough time you
can figure out who's influential in any community.
Our first bloggers came from a wide cross-section of the net. But,
ironically they all knew of each other. It was interesting to see them
meet for the first time.
But to your point, no we did not focus on any one community or
publishing platform. And realize, this group is only the start. We plan
to invite hundred more into the project. If they want in, we'll find
them a place. [filchyboy]
