"Deep Ambivalence" About Blogs

--"Some say [post] good things, some say [post] bad things...we keep it all up there [on the blog], warts and all."--

Online Media Daily's Wendy Davis reports in "Marketers Intrigued By Blogs, Fear Their Power" that there is a deep ambivalence towards blogs, saying that their companies urgently want a blog presence but, at the same time, fear the consequences of letting consumers freely express their opinions. The tension between companies wanting to increase visibility and consumer engagement, and, on the other, fearing bad publicity, appeared repeatedly at Ad:Tech 2005. As one conference member stated:

• "If you're taking every negative comment down as soon as they go up, no one's going to go to [the blog]," said David Rubin, senior brand development manager for Axe at Unilever.
  

Unilever, for instance, launched Axe deodorant with a corporate blog featuring the dating adventures of two real-life comics, known as Evan and Gareth. The blog, which showed their exploits reality-TV style, drew more than 1 million visitors. Still, Davis reports, it's not clear that the Evan and Gareth project involved a huge risk on Unilever's part, because the blog wasn't about the product.