Marketers Look for Viral Hits With Adverblogs

Posted on September 30, 2005

Marketing companies are still trying adverblogs despite the fact that many of them get slammed by bloggers. AdJab has a post about a new fake character blog used to promote HPTV. And Ads that Suck says that a new Juicy Fruit blog is a miserable failure.

There have been some character blog that have worked -- usually ones targeting children that are based on an already existing character. For the most part adverblogs using fake people or fake characters don't go over too well in the blogosphere. The reason marketers continue to go for it with adverblogging is the off chance that one of their adverblogs will be a success and viral out through the blogosphere.

One example of a success was Sega's funny Super Monkey Ball Deluxe promotion that involves a fake character named Chad who is trying to live inside a giant ball because he is so into the Super Monkey Ball Deluxe videogame. The MyBigBall campaign shows the adventures of the character named Chad using short videos and bloggish notebook entries. Adverblogs using fake characters have to be especially funny or creative to have a chance -- otherwise marketers will quickly see their attempts slammed by blogs like Ads that Suck and ignored by blog readers.