Here is my research for the Wikipedia Assignment.

Celebrity Flogs
Many celebrities have a blog “they” write in, whether it’s to generate flack for their reality shows such as Adrianne Curry’s (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=42771364) for her show My Fair Brady 3, or Jesus’ own personal blog titled, What Would Jesus Blog? (http://whatwouldjb.blogspot.com/) where “Jesus” talks about pop culture.

NewsGroper.com is a whole website dedicated to flogs by “celebrities”. Unlike flogs paid or created by corporations, Newsgroper.com admits the blogs aren’t real but are based on real events involving the celebrity being mocked.

Why do companies create flogs?
In an attempt to reach younger generations, companies will often employ non-traditional marketing campaigns such as uploading videos to online video sites and creating flogs.

Countless examples show us that faux consumer-generated content by companies does nothing but hurt company-customer relations.

One classic example is the corporation flog was The Zero Movement (http://www.coca-cola.com.au/footy/) created by Coca-Cola Australia aimed at male youths. To kick of the new campaign, the company decided to use non-traditional viral marketing channels by introducing the product through a series of posters (http://www.thezeromovement.org/coke-vandalism.jpg), chalk drawings and the website with blog-type entries that even included fake user comments.
For weeks it was not made clear the Coke was tied to The Zero Movement.


“While the blog's archives indicate the site's been up since June, 2005, Whois information tells a very different story. Not only does the information reveal the site is a product of Coke, it clearly states the domain for the site was registered November 21, 2005, a full five months after the site, according to its archives, launched. On top of this, blog-monitoring service BlogPulse has little to no information on the blog. Had The Zero Movement blog been pumping out posts since June 2005, BlogPulse (http://blogpulse.com/profile?type=overview&url=http://www.thezeromovement.com) would have had a sizeable profile for the site. Blog search engine Technorati, aside from some recent referrals, doesn't have much either. In creating The Zero Movement, Coke has lied, misled and misrepresented.“ - (http://www.adrants.com/2006/01/coke-lies-misleads-with-fake-zero.php)

As of today, The Zero Movement has been altered and it is now clear who is behind the site. In response to misleading the public, Coca-Cola Australia did not continue without negative side effects. One consumer went so far as to create his own blog titled, The Zero Movement Sucks (http://thezeromovementsucks.blogspot.com/).

Why did Coca-Cola do it? Managing Director Gareth Edgecome said,

“We wanted to connect with the target audience in a novel way … to create ‘talkability’ before the product started hitting the shelves. To do that we had to deliver an irreverent and highly engaging campaign to drive word of mouth.”

Obviously a failure, The Zero Movement did not go unnoticed or without consequences.
- http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/coke-gets-a-zero-for-effort/2006/01/24/1138066785594.html
- http://www.thezeromovement.org/ encourages consumers to chose water over sodas and donate that money to deserving charities.

Trying a second time, Coca-Cola has moved on to YouTube video in which two hired lawyers/actors supposedly punk random, unsuspecting lawyers by telling them they want to sue Coke Zero because it tastes so much like Coke. (http://www.adrants.com/2006/07/after-fake-blog-coke-zero-moves-on-to-you.php)
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-s_TAgM2_M
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrJ9hrAAeIU
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv8YgrqUCVU


Walmart’s Jim and Laura
Walmart, through their public-relations firm, Edlman (http://www.edelman.com/) also tried non-traditional promotion.
“On Sept. 27, 2006, a folksy blog called Wal-Marting Across America was born. It features the journey of Laura and Jim, a couple on their maiden trip in an RV… capturing lives and stories as they journey from Las Vegas to Georgia, and park for free at Wal-Mart Store parking lots.” - (http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2006/db20061009_579137.htm)

Other bad press for Walmart includes:
- http://kevin.lexblog.com/2006/03/articles/public-relations/walmart-exploits-bloggers-in-pr-campaign/
- http://kevin.lexblog.com/2006/10/articles/public-relations/fake-blog-walmart-gets-caught-with-its-pants-down/

Luckily for companies, Internet content is easily changed and deleted so finding the flogs are difficult if not altogether impossible once the company has been called out. Unfortunately companies cannot change content that isnt’ theirs so all the remains is the negative press and consumer blogs created in response.

What to do about Flogs
Due to the short length of time that flogs have been around the best actions for reporting and recognizing blogs have not been established yet and contacting the sites directly will get you know-where but ignored. The best thing now to fight flogs is to report them. (http://www.peoplesearchnews.com/technology/what-you-can-do-to-stop-fake-blogs/)
- http://splogreporter.com/