To blog or not to blog....

Almost a Shakespearean question?

Yes, so it was to Vichy Cosmetics, a French subsidiary of L'Oreal, who once (back in 2005) decided to open the "blog" for the purpose of promoting their new product, a skin care line "Peel Microabrasion".

The blogs phenomena appeared (in late 90's) a perfect tool for idle graphomans to express their ideas, or, more importantly, a free-to-use platform for every concerned speaker, who then was able to express their vision in a sort of mass-media, available to a vast (and growing) population of Internet users.

While some of the blogs are still anonymous (the author disguises his/herself under a fictious nickname, and still gets figured by most tenacious followers), personal, "named" blogs have become a personal mass-media with rights and obligations of a real hardcopy. Some of not-so-lucky bloggers got fired, fined, or brought up to court for expressing their opinions (which contradicted their employers' vision of proper conduct).
So, while being an "unofficial" form of expressing oneself (as perceived by many), the blog has its obligations...

Now, shall we go back to Vichy?
They started a "blog", which idea was proposed by some well-known promotion agency - that is, to have a fictional character ("Claire") "post" or "blog" about the effect of her using the new "Peel Microabrasion" product. However, the blog took a little more than 2 weeks to reveal it's being "too professional" and "made up". Then, the havoc started to unroll.

So why did this happen? Well, blog-readers usually expect an objective (and biased) opinion of a real person who's behind the blog, and they really feel as being "set up" if this is just a trick of a bunch of marketers... Just because they can pick up a nice booklet in a nearest cosmetics shop to know about how nice the product is! To read the blog is much like asking a stranger what he/she thinks, and what if the stranger is just a sales agent?

As a result, Vichy tried to gather all the negative feedback and converted the blog (with the help of Loic Le Meur) to something else - an online consultancy, which, as they claim, is how it was meant to be from the very start.

But should they have done the "blog" (or flog="fake blog") at the first place?
I believe not. Since this type of media is believed to be "real" by nature, and is exposed to a variety of critics - he truth is too easy to uncover... Then everyone's hurt - readers in their feelings, publisher (the Vichy) - in renommé.

What could be done afterwards? Apologies? Yes, probably. Asking feedback from "betrayed" users in a tight timeframe? Maybe not. Personally, I would run for a transparency campaign, squeezing "feedback" sections in every webpage of a real product, or even at the shop's counter. They have done it good - since they asked their consumers, and, they stayed on-line - after all.