Around this time last year, the reputation of flogs (or fake blogs) had been all but completely destroyed. “Marketing experts” attempted to jump on the blog bandwagon, but did so in such a way as to hide the association between brand & blog.

Rightly so, some may say, as who really wants to read a blog that’s sole purpose is to promote a brand or product? But is the answer to disguise your intentions or would it be better for brands to steer clear of creating disguised blogs altogether?

Noelle Weaver certainly believed the latter when she posted an insightful article on the subject:

1. Good advertising doesn’t rely on tricking, lying to or deceiving your target audience.
2. The consumer is smarter than you think, alternative marketing tactics must be genuine, authentic and in today’s world, transparent.
3. Today’s interest in brand politics means that everything you do will come under scrutiny from someone. See number 2.
4. Involve your consumer in the brand conversation, give them the tools to do so and they will repay you four-fold.

Thanks to the large amount of damaging publicity that both “Lonely Girl 15” and, to a greater extent due to the size of the brands, Sony PSP & Cillit Bang (both of who had to remove the blogs in question due to the vast amount of negative coverage), the short life of flogs seemed to have been brought to an abrupt and dramatic end. Who would be brave or stupid enough to delve into an arena that would more than likely make their brand walk hand-in-hand with dishonesty for years to come?

Which brings me nicely onto the reason for my post. Recently I, quite literally, “stumbled” across a ‘blog’ from a chap calling himself Ugly Billy, which is the first flog I’ve seen since the above debacle. Billy himself describes it as a “docu-blog-mentary” and it is predominantly in the form of video posts. He is, as the address suggests, a guy that’s struggling when it comes to women (mainly because of his unruly beard and hairstyle) and wants to get himself back in the game.

Now BaByliss for Men are the brand responsible for this site. And, as is protocol with flogs, the first 16 entries mentioned nothing about the brand. However, in entry 17, the i-clip and i-trim are not-so-subtly introduced and everything becomes clear – so let the BaByliss bashing begin!

Or maybe not. I, for one, will reserve judgment for now and I’ll tell you why.

Firstly, although there is still the usual covert nature expected of flogs, anyone that truly believed a brand was not heavily involved with this site (or at least something cladestine was taking place) would be extremely naïve; even his beard appears to be fake!

And secondly, and most importantly, the docu-blog-mentary is actually very funny and entertaining. It is something that I will happily choose to watch…for now. I just hope that the introduction of the brand does not send this site spiralling in the same direction as its predecessors.

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