Fake Blog Alert: McDonalds, shame, shame

When we see fake corporate blogs we'll point them out to you. Why are these bad? A good blog demonstrates passion and authority. Fake blogs have neither. In fact, they demonstrate that no one is passionate enough about the product inside the company so they had to hire an ad agency to do a fake blog to try to get bloggers to link up. Oh, and we won't even cover the lack of authority in such an effort.

Of course we'll link using the new "nofollow" attribute so these sites don't get any Google juice.

In the fake seat: McDonalds. Thanks to the PR Blog for bring us tonight's fake blog.

Comments

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

Seems I recall some video game manufacturer did a similar thing, hired someone to create a hip blog but it was a real piece of work, as the construction guys say.

Anybody know what I refer to?

This would be a great item to add to your book.

[jr]

I believe you mean ilovebees.com, which was "hacked" for Halo2.

It wasn't so much a blog as a really involving marketing effort, but it did garner quite a few kudos.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

No, I refer to something prior to Halo 2. I'm not a gamer, so I don't know this field very well, but it seems like it was a Sega Genesis blog, but I could be wrong.

Somebody out there must surely recall what I refer to. I'll google it and try to verify and document this item. I hate to mention something I cannot prove. But there, I did it, and I'm not happy about it.

[Robert Scoble]

I didn't like the I Love Bees thing because of its fake nature either. We should definitely put that in the book. Interesting, though, that I Love Bees never got blamed for being a fake blog. Maybe because it was hard to see its commercial ties?

[Dave Bascom]

This is a case where McDonalds's is obviously poking fun at the recent phenomenon of people auctioning off weird items with the image (or posessed by the ghost) of someone for a lot of money.

The commercial about the lincoln fry was obviously meant to be a joke, and they simply carried it over to the fake blog. Is it that hard for people to see that this blog is part of the same campaign? The blog is clearly not intended to fool people into thinking it's a real blog. That's the critical difference that nobody seems to acknowledge.

I thought the commerical was funny, but maybe the funniest part of this whole thing is that Golden Palace is now high bidder for the fake fry prop for over $20K on the REAL Yahoo Auction!

[Randy H.]

I think the fake blog is fine for humor such as this. It is a silly concept, but at least there is a concept. If it were simply designed to deceive people or create "fake" buzz, I wouldn't like it. But this was ok. The more interesting question here would be "How could McDonald's have generated more buzz with a REAL blog?"

[David Karp]

Well, at my company we agree that _fake_ is uncool. But we also think that humor and satire (corporate-sponsored or otherwise) have their place in the blogosphere. We have regular corporate blogs - written by our actual employees - and we also have a satirical blog - www.frankwillis.com - which is not intended to fool anyone, but rather to be funny. We hope to get people to laugh out loud, and maybe cringe a little when it comes close to the bone. Of course we're pitching our point of view, and what we think is wrong with our competitors. But we didn't hire a PR agency to do it. We thought it up ourselves and hired a comedy writer.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

Now we need a Fake Blog Directory, Phony Wiki Directory, Bogus CyborgLog Directory, so we can surf these gems quickly and get nothing from them fast.

Give me a brake.

[Everett]

'Oh, for shame! No Google juice for you! Naughty, naughty McDonalds! Let's stick it to the man!'
etc etc etc...

I usually have lots of respect for what you have to say, however... please, in this case, get off your high horse. Blogs are a medium for words and whatnot. How the individual (or corporation) chooses to use one is their business. It's not like they're trying to poison us bloggers and eat our children. They're promoting their brand.

By the way, you still haven't mentioned why fake blogs are bad. Or who they're bad for. Or how you know it was done by someone in an ad agency.

[Robert Scoble]

Everett, I already mentioned why they are bad. Only doing a fake blog demonstrates that you don't have anyone who works for you that's passionate or authoritative. You recognize that the blog is a useful thing because there's traffic there. But the person at McDonalds didn't recognize WHY they are so powerful.

Who are they bad for? Well, did anyone say anything NICE about this effort? I haven't seen it. Even you haven't said anything nice about it.

How do I know it was done by an ad agency? Because I know how big companies operate. This wasn't done by some employee. It was done by some marketing committee who heard that blogging is cool and thought they'd hire an ad agency to use a blog in their ad campaign.

Translation: they demonstrated cluelessness.

[Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

Again I say, "Torch the Ivory Towers of Corporate Cluelessness".

Fake = stupid = con job = hypocrite = waste of time = pollution of category and concept = dumbing down = "don't worry, be crappy" = marketing suicide = mediocrity, etc.

Need I go on?

Give me a brake.

[Bloggern]

Fake blogs!!!

I understand that you hate fake blogs. I think fake blogs destroy the wonderful idea of real and authentic blogs. They have no passion and there's no fire. And exchange is not possible.

What a pity! But on the other hand there are so many interesting blogs without disrespectful ads.