In its latest attempt to battle Anheuser-Busch, an employee from Miller Brewing Co. is now running a blog (Brew Blog) which breaks news about beer, especially Anheuser-Busch. Recently, James Arndorfer, posted information on Busch's latest brew, "Budweiser American Ale" ahead of the company's marketing and PR campaigns. This clearly angered Busch, which surely felt as though it was "scooped".
This site is evidence that "corporate espionage" and "sabotage" could take on a whole new meaning in the age of the internet, particularly for consumer product companies. Although the estimated damage is difficult to measure, it is easy to believe that these types of actions between rivals could cost millions. For example, company A spends millions designing and setting up and ad campaign and it's rival breaks the news ahead of the campaign. And on top of that, the rival could do it for free on a blog.
In addition to spilling news about its rival, MIller as basically created a platform to spin industry news in its favor. The biggest question will be credibility. Will consumers trust this site or view it as "manufactured" marketing?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120829767153417401.html?mod=2_1567_topbox
1 comment:
I loved this article in the WSJ -- it proves that not only will we as marketers be able to use blogs and other online technology in our favor, but we also have to think about and react to possible ways that competitors may use the technology against us. The story here was a funny one, but the phenomenon could become more widespread and wreak real havoc with the way that marketing strategy is planned and implemented.
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