Business and Blogs

Dove reaches out to bloggers with chocolate

I have only one problem with the recent blogger outreach marketing campaign put together by Matchstick for Dove, and that is the idea that the boxload of chocolate they sent you is supposed to be shared with your friends and family. This chocolate is really good. My instinct, frankly, is to hoard it all for myself.

Nonetheless, I did go ahead and share it, and the results were pretty unanimous. Most of my friends and family really liked it, from the packaging to the flavor. Dove has always been one of my favorite chocolates, infinitely superior to most of the chocolate available in grocery stores (which is where I usually gave in and bought chocolate, frankly). So when a friend forwarded me a link to a blogger outreach program that promised me FREE chocolate in exchange for being contacted a few times by Dove/Matchstick, I was thrilled. The program, which I was also interested in—there is a whole chapter on how to market successfully in the blogosphere in my book “Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies” --did everything right. There was no requirement to blog about the chocolate, although clearly the folks running the campaign hoped the bloggers who got chocolate would do so. In fact, the information sheet that came with the chocolate urged the participating bloggers to “let your friends know how and why Matchstick has made you a part of this program and what your involvement is.So high marks to the chocolate, and high marks to Matchstick.

The “Dove Pleasure Kit” arrived with about 18 small packets of chocolate, each containing four pieces. I believe the person who interviewed me for the program called these “purse packs” and these were the easiest to give away to friends. There were also four full bars of chocolate, and three packages containing individually wrapped pieces. For good measure, the kit also contained a Dove journal (for your scintillating thoughts on chocolate, perhaps), a “foot pampering” kit, a wine glass, and the whole thing was packed in a tote bag. Just as the sayings on the inside of the individual chocolate pieces are, the whole kit/program was target to a female audience. I had never previously considered exfoliating my feet while drinking wine and eating chocolate, but anything for science, right? You can see photos of the entire kit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/supersusie/tags/dove/

There were four kinds of chocolate in the kit: Milk, Dark, Dusk, and 71% Cocoa. My favorite, by far, was the new flavor, “Dusk” which is a mix of milk and dark chocolate. The overall flavor is deeper than milk chocolate, less cloying sweet, but without any of the dryness or even bitterness that dark chocolate has. Oddly enough, although I usually prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, I liked Dove’s milk chocolate better than the dark. Perhaps just on the edge of being too sweet, it was better “in the mouth” that the dark chocolate, which didn’t melt as nicely and seemed a tad waxy. My least favorite was the 71% Cocoa, though this didn’t surprise me—I haven’t liked much of the cocoa bars I’ve tried, regardless of brand.

So, my thanks to Dove for the chocolate. I highly recommend it! 

Ways Businesses Screw Up With Blog

Social Signal’s Rob Cottingham put up a terrific blog post in February that you should go look at if you missed it. Titled Nine (or ten) ways to stumble in social media,” the post is absolutely required reading for businesses who are already involving themselves in the blogophere, or those who are considering it.

Actually, come to think of it, I suppose it’s a great article for those who have chosen NOT to get involved, in order to be able to explain their decision—not that I think any reasonably sized company can afford to ignore blogs today.

Here’s just one of the examples Rob features:

Playing coy: Outright dishonesty isn’t the only thing that can trip you up. Wal-Marting Across America was a blog by a middle-aged couple driving their RV across the U.S., camping overnight in Wal-Mart parking lots and telling stories about the wonderful people they met - a remarkable number of whom had glowing things to say about Wal-Mart. None of this was untrue; the couple was genuine, the RV was an RV, and nobody’s disputing the stories people were telling. But what the blog didn’t mention - anywhere - is that the whole thing was paid for by Wal-Mart itself: from airfares to the RV itself. The blog was outed, the story hit the mainstream media, and both Wal-Mart and their PR firm, Edelman, were left looking very much like they’d tried to pull something sleazy.

My quick rule of thumb: disclose everything, even if you don’t think it’s important, and if you ever used the phrase “we’ll just make them think...” when describing what you’re doing—don’t.