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McClaque: paying for attention on blogs

Another pay-per-post variation has been laucnhed by a company called Creamaid.

This one encourages transparency and doens’t require a positive mention, just a mention.

As a result McDonalds, after an impressive CSR blog effort are now have blog touts roaming the networks offering US$10 for a mention of a golden arches experience on a blog. Not that they may have asked for the campaign in the first place….

The McLovers page stresses that “we’re not affiliated to McDonalds in anyway:

The “We want to show that customer experiences can be really valuable to companies” line suggests that this is  a proof of concept site.

It sounds like claque behaviour, astroturfing, whatever, to me. If someone were doing to this to my brand I would want them to stop.

: : You can also earn US $8 by writing about your Heineken experience. That might not work so well in the UK where binge drinking is rife and a Heineken experience is often caught by CCTV and replayed on a local news report….

 

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Antony Mayfield

3 responses to “McClaque: paying for attention on blogs”

  1. Jackie Danicki Avatar
    Jackie Danicki

    If nothing else, this sounds like a very powerful case study to show companies that they can’t “control the message,” and that their brand ownership only goes so far. Suspicious, though.

  2. Steve Roest Avatar
    Steve Roest

    I agree with suspicious. I keep asking myself why would someone other than MacDonalds begin such a campaign? What do they stand to gain from it? And the language is so faux-non corporate…

    I smell a big mac shaped rat…

    Steve

  3. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    Don’t think for a minute that someone, somewhere in the thousands of McMarketing meetings around the world every year hasn’t at some point hasn’t floated the “McRat” concept…

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