The Unlawyer

Kudos to the Philippine franchisee of Krispy Kreme for trying to creating an online buzz regarding the eagerly-awaited opening of its first Metro Manila outlet by sending boxes of free doughnuts to popular bloggers across the domestic blogosphere. I suppose their publicist realizes the value of any publicity produced by positive reviews posted online, and the word-of-mouth endorsements it generates.

Annalyn also mentioned that Krispy Kreme ran the risk of sending their stuff to an indifferent blogger or, at worst, a hostile one, but it seems that their publicist minimized that concern by pre-qualifying who the recipients are, that is, by delivering samples to bloggers who have favorably commented on the product, or on the proposed Philippine launch.

I suppose it’s more than just a coincidence that the issue of blogger endorsements is being discussed nowadays, now that Philippine bloggers are exploring more ways to monetize their blog content beyond the usual Adsense/Adbrite/Text Link Ads advertising model. Blogger-journalist Max Limpag who recently reviewed ReviewMe’s business model of brokering between clients who want to pay bloggers for product or service reviews, isn’t comfortable with that idea:

“I’m also concerned with the effect of the solicited review on blog posts. Sure, you can tell yourself and your readers that despite the payment, you’re doing an unbiased review but the fact that you’re being paid for it by the subject of the article affects the credibility of your post.”

Max, however, sees the value of such endorsements from the advertiser’s point of view:

“If I were an advertiser, I’d go to blogs for promotion and feedback on top of my usual media diet. I’d give top bloggers sample units of my products or access to my services to evaluate. Feedback by bloggers is both an effective online marketing and product evaluation tool. Heck, I won’t even require them to post, the feedback alone is worth the amount I’ll be paying them for the test.”

Max also links to this article by Migs Paraz expanding on the advantages a ReviewMe post can deliver to an advertiser:

“The value for the advertiser is that their product is mentioned in context. The obvious benefit is the link in context, if the client requires it. From a SEO perspective, this is like a presell page. Now even without a link, it’s still more buzz in the influential blogosphere. Of course the blog owner must guarantee that the post will stick around forever. A lifetime warranty.

“Another benefit is more people get to think about the product. Having a number of reviewers – perhaps hundreds in this ReviewMe launch – is enough to get different heads thinking about the product. This presumes the bloggers give the product some actual thought, and don’t just echo blindly.”

Precisely what the Philippines’ Krispy Kreme franchisee is doing, and so far they have achieved its immediate goal of generating blogger-produced publicity in the Philippine blogosphere.