Company: Avent
Agency: Edelman
Timeframe: 2005, ongoing
According to Entrepreneur magazine, 2005 was the year of a veritable blog explosion on the Internet. The number of blogs more than doubled between June and December last year,
and it's expected to have doubled again by the time 2006 is officially behind us.
But it's not a good idea to leap into the blogosphere without conducting some serious prior looking, research and planning, no matter how much a client insists that a blog is
exactly what his or her company needs. You've got to do it right. That means doing your homework and then maintaining the blog properly.
To say that blogging has become de riguer in the past two years states the obvious, even the redundant. A poll last year by Harris Interactive, Inc., found that word-of-mouth
communications "carries much more weight than corporate advertising and public relations." The study reported that people give the most credibility to personal experience (92%)
followed by word-of-mouth communication (85%) opinions of company employees (84%) and only then advertising and PR (70%). The "word-of-mouth" messages include chatter in blogs and
other sites on the Internet, and according to Jonathan Dewitt, senior vice president of Harris's Wirthlin Brand & Strategy Consulting group, companies need to start "getting a
handle on what's being said about them and trying to manage it."
Why Blog?
The blogging benefits to a company are clear. According to Andrew Sullivan, a master blogger who wrote on the subject for Wired magazine as early as 2002, "Blogs do two things
that Web magazines like Slate and Salon simply cannot." In the first place, he says, blogs are personal, and the "personal touch is much more in tune with our current sensibility
than were the opinionated magazines and newspapers of old." This is more than borne out by the findings of the Harris poll. A lone blogger who has earned the respect of his or her
readers is more trustworthy than any amount of media coverage or advertising, in the eyes of many current consumers.
In addition, as more and more PR practitioners recognize, blogs create a direct link to the reader/consumer, a power that should not be underestimated. The presence of editors
and publishers, or news writers and producers, introduces a subtle distortion in the eyes of a cynical public, who sense any and all efforts to push a particular agenda. The whole
conversation, and the ways in which it takes place, are changing faster than most PR pros can run.
Therefore, there were many extremely good reasons why Avent, an infant feeding company with a new breast pump it wanted to introduce to the public, encouraged Edelman public
relations to build the company a blog to get the word out. The company cited research by ComScore, a global market research provider and consultant for Internet usage, which
showed that more than 15.5 million American women aged 25 to 44 with children routinely use the Internet at home, and their favorite Web sites are those where they can find like-
minded moms to compare notes and get advice. In fact, online intelligence firm Intelliseek reported that moms are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by online word-of-mouth
recommendations than by ads.
New mothers and mothers to be, however, were running into a total dearth of online conversations about breast-feeding, a topic of particularly hot debate in recent years, from
the public lambasting of Barbara Walters for her on-air remarks about a woman who breastfed next to her on a plane, to the fierce debate about the relative merits of breastfeeding
in such high-profile publications as The New York Times.
Yet, although there were some 2,000 mom-related blogs online, not one of them addressed this subject. Avent saw a chance to fill a gap, to feed young mothers' hunger for
information, opinions and advice they could trust on a subject near and dear to their hearts: the nourishment of their infants.
Avent decided it could most effectively meet the needs of new moms by creating an online community to showcase and build up on personal motherhood experiences. The "Sisterhood
Six" blog, led by moms, for moms, would allow Avent to develop a lasting relationship with the target audience that would extend into ongoing brand familiarity and increased
awareness of the brand on the eve of its new product launch. Six authors for the site were chosen who reflected the ethnic and life stage diversity of the Avent audience. Their
voices were helpful and unique, and they offered a wide range of perspectives and points of view. The blog, at its inception, was written by a medical professional, a lactation
consultant, an author, a mom-to-be, a new mother, and the mother of more than one baby. Each was encouraged to share her personal experiences and real feelings on a weekly basis.
The Challenges
It seemed like the perfect solution, and it looked so easy. But it wasn't simple to execute the blog in a way that would not turn off potential clients. A delicate balance had
to be achieved.
According to Alexandra Levit, Senior Account Supervisor for Edelman Interactive Solutions, the agency that helped Avent build its Sisterhood Six blog, "Clients doing blogs in
general have a desire to control the conversation that occurs in this free-spirited environment." That control would be anathema to mothers looking for unbiased information from
their peer group. "All clients need to be educated to encourage open conversations," she adds. The PR professional has to tell the client: "You don't have control, nor should
you." The goal, says Levit, was to "establish a resource that's useful for moms, regardless of the feeling."
Scary stuff, particularly for a company that has never blogged before. But managing client expectations is part of the PR manual. "We educated them to start without any
expectations; we were going to encourage our posters to blog on certain topics. But it was a freedom situation, so they could choose what they felt strongly about, and we could
not influence topics directly," says Levit.
Once the Sisterhood Six blog launched, Avent would not be able to come in and say they didn't like what was being said. The company does not have comment approval, either,
before they are posted. The authors are self-regulating, and, according to Levit, "If something outrageous was said, it wouldn't be posted without their seeing it first."
The blog contains a wealth of conversation about whether or not to breastfeed and the pressures that are being leveraged in society and the medical profession and the media.
"You also get a ton of active discussion on breastfeeding in public and how old kids should be before you wean them," says Levit. The authors represent a lot of different points
of view, keeping the conversation open and unfettered for more credibility.
But What's In It For The Client?
One question that will occur to the minds of many a client is how they stand to benefit from a situation they can't control, and one where their product message carries little
if any presence. "The benefit to Avent is that it is perceived as a thought leader in this area," says Levit. "There wasn't a blog such as this before. They didn't have to beat
the competition - they leapfrogged it. Breastfeeding hadn't been covered on the Internet." For a company that had just produced a revolutionary new bottle nipple that was shaped
like a real breast, to prevent air from getting into an infant's stomach, the positive reflections on the brand were a godsend.
"Women go to the site every day, which is branded to Avent in the interests of being transparent," notes Levit. "Avent is seen as doing something to benefit the new-mom
community." That transparency, however, is a point not to be missed. A key potential misstep with the blogosphere would be to hide who you are. Transparency is the most critical
part. "We were concerned about what people would think," says Levit. The agency warned Avent not to appear as if they were endorsing a certain perspective. To prevent that, the
blog designers built into the site language that showed it was sponsored by Avent, but presented no endorsements of a particular point of view. The authors don't work for Avent,
so no one has a perspective of Avent based on what's said on the blog.
So far, the strategy is working. In January of 2006, visitors were staying on the site an average of 324 seconds, which is 300 percent longer than the average blog stay (of 96
seconds), according to ProBlogger. This demonstrates that the visitors to the blog are reading more than one post and becoming involved in the conversations. In addition, the
posts and active conversation caused traffic on the blog to multiply from 400 unique visitors during its first month, to almost 3,000 unique visitors per month by the end of
January.
Avent also achieved its goals: Sisterhood Six was a cornerstone of the media outreach surrounding the launch of its new breast pump, resulting in more than 15 million media
impressions. And the site also went global this year, generating positive comments in a Spanish write-up on Madrid's bebesymas.com site (Babies and More).
Contact:
Alexandra Levit, 312-297-7027; [email protected]
How To Build A Better Blog
"Blogging is a good, inexpensive tool for branding," says Scott Ahlsmith, chairman of the Travel Institute, an educational and benchmarking entity for the travel industry, as
well as president and CEO of Magellan360, a hosting solutions company for home-based travel agencies. Ahlsmith launched a blogging service last year for Magellan360 called "You!
The Brand," which creates blogs for hundreds of home-based agents. He also operates his own, highly successful, travel blog.
But you, and your clients, should beware the temptation to get the technology rolling and then let the conversation fly. According to Alexandra Levit, Senior Account Supervisor
for Edelman Interactive Solutions, it's important to do your homework. "Everybody wants to blog," she says. "Take a step back and consider whether it's worthwhile."
- Conduct conversation research to see what's already being said. "We found that we had a wide open opportunity," says Levit. "We knew it would be great because new moms
were hungry for information that wasn't being provided yet. But there are a lot of glutted areas. You must participate in a way that's useful, not just 'me-too' to have a blog for
the sake of blogging.
- Make sure the blog will be worth the money you put into it. Is it needed? Do you have a useful point of view to offer? And is it relevant? "Useful content is critical. Even if
you have a view, it's all the execution," says Levit. "Find authors who are experts, who have a conversational tone, and who will keep people coming back."
- Be prepared for the care and feeding of your blog. Clients don't know how much time a blog takes. It's not just posting frequently. To have a respected blog, you have to
interact with the community. In the case of Avent, the company also had to go on other momblogs and comment on them and get involved in other conversations. Link to like-minded
blogs is Levit's advice, and "encourage them to link back to you. Not only is it mandatory, but it also will drive traffic and visibility." The goal is to get eyeballs and get
them absorbed in the message, which will happen more as more people are exposed to the message.
- Manage your client's expectations, and avoid self-serving endorsement. "You have to be nonpartisan, even generic," says Ahlsmith. "If you promote something, do it without
compensation, and make it clear you aren't getting paid to do it." Ahlsmith's own site has an entry about his coffee-maker (yes, really), but he stresses that they didn't pay him
for this. In the case of Avent, branding is present on the site for the sake of transparency, but the products are not promoted.
- Manage your authors, particularly if they are new. "We had some authors who were a little sensitive," recalls Levit. All the women who write for Sisterhood Six were new to
blogging. It's important for the authors to understand that having their point of view challenged is something that can come up. The Sisterhood Six "were a little taken aback,"
Levitt admits. "We had unhappy authors who didn't like what was being said, and we had to explain that it's actually a good thing, if you encourage this kind of give and take. A
couple of the authors were unhappy enough to leave, and we rotated a couple out."
- Create conversations with controversy. A little controversy is a good thing on a blog, too, says Ahlsmith. "People don't go to a blog to be safe, they go to be a little edgy.
Don't be outrageous or untruthful, but don't be afraid to be a little bit 'out there'." In addition, he says, it pays to keep your messaging short and succinct.
- Go with the flow. On a blog about motherhood, growth was inevitable. A mother-to-be turned into a mother, so she had to change category. She did so, and kept on writing. It's
a constant evolution, as are client expectations. "We are constantly reeducating the client on the value of the blog as a resource," notes Levit.