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Big Food uses mommy bloggers to shape public opinion - by Anna Lappe'
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/food-agriculturemonsantogmoadvertising.html
Big Food uses mommy bloggers to shape public opinion
As content increasingly becomes PR, consumers suffer
August 1, 2014 by Anna Lappé
This past weekend, biotech giant Monsanto paid bloggers $150 each to attend an intimate and interactive panel with two female farmers and a team from Monsanto. The strictly invitation-only three-hour brunch, which took place on the heels of the BlogHer Conference, promised bloggers a chance to learn about where your food comes from and to hear about the impact growing food has on the environment, and how farmers are using fewer resources to feed a growing population. Though the invitation from BlogHer explicitly stated, No blog posts or social media posts expected, the event was clearly designed to influence the opinions and the writing of a key influencer: the mommy blogger.
<snip>
Stealth marketing techniques, such as these by Monsanto, reveal how the food industry from biotech behemoths to fast-food peddlers is working surreptitiously to shape public opinion about biotechnology, industrialized farming and junk food.
<snip>
Sean Timberlake, who has been blogging for nearly a decade, characterized industrys move into the social media space as sweeping and vast. He explained that back when he started out, I dont think the Monsantos of the world understood what blogs were or cared, but now, companies develop entire budget lines for social media programs. They build it into their whole ad budget. Ad networks such as BlogHer and Federated two of the biggest facilitate companies advertising and outreach on blogs by aggregating blogs to sell as a bigger package. These networks, Timberlake explained, can be leveraged and used as a bullhorn for their marketing.
<snip>
The uptick in these stealth-marketing strategies coincides with growing popular outcry about agricultural chemicals, soda and junk food and genetically modified ingredients. Consider that despite millions spent on marketing over the two decades since genetically engineered seeds were first commercialized, 93 percent of Americans still think GMOs should be labeled and 65 percent are either unsure about the technology or believe it to be unsafe. Last year, when Monsanto retained the PR firm FleishmanHillard, known for its work with social media and agribusiness, to develop its new marketing initiatives, it did so amid fierce opposition to the seed giants genetically modified products, noted the Holmes Report, a PR industry publication.
The father of public relations, Edward Bernays, might never have dreamed up the age of Twitter and Facebook, but he likely wouldnt be surprised to see food-industry tweets and Facebook ads dressed up as news. Bernays knew the importance of constant PR innovation. If the public becomes weary of the old methods used to persuade it, he wrote in his 1928 book Propaganda, then we must simply present our appeals more intelligently. Or, as were seeing with Monsanto and its food industry counterparts, if not exactly intelligently, then at least more surreptitiously: on the podium, the Twitter feeds and the mommy blogs.
Anna Lappé is the author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It and a co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and Real Food Media Project.
Big Food uses mommy bloggers to shape public opinion
As content increasingly becomes PR, consumers suffer
August 1, 2014 by Anna Lappé
This past weekend, biotech giant Monsanto paid bloggers $150 each to attend an intimate and interactive panel with two female farmers and a team from Monsanto. The strictly invitation-only three-hour brunch, which took place on the heels of the BlogHer Conference, promised bloggers a chance to learn about where your food comes from and to hear about the impact growing food has on the environment, and how farmers are using fewer resources to feed a growing population. Though the invitation from BlogHer explicitly stated, No blog posts or social media posts expected, the event was clearly designed to influence the opinions and the writing of a key influencer: the mommy blogger.
<snip>
Stealth marketing techniques, such as these by Monsanto, reveal how the food industry from biotech behemoths to fast-food peddlers is working surreptitiously to shape public opinion about biotechnology, industrialized farming and junk food.
<snip>
Sean Timberlake, who has been blogging for nearly a decade, characterized industrys move into the social media space as sweeping and vast. He explained that back when he started out, I dont think the Monsantos of the world understood what blogs were or cared, but now, companies develop entire budget lines for social media programs. They build it into their whole ad budget. Ad networks such as BlogHer and Federated two of the biggest facilitate companies advertising and outreach on blogs by aggregating blogs to sell as a bigger package. These networks, Timberlake explained, can be leveraged and used as a bullhorn for their marketing.
<snip>
The uptick in these stealth-marketing strategies coincides with growing popular outcry about agricultural chemicals, soda and junk food and genetically modified ingredients. Consider that despite millions spent on marketing over the two decades since genetically engineered seeds were first commercialized, 93 percent of Americans still think GMOs should be labeled and 65 percent are either unsure about the technology or believe it to be unsafe. Last year, when Monsanto retained the PR firm FleishmanHillard, known for its work with social media and agribusiness, to develop its new marketing initiatives, it did so amid fierce opposition to the seed giants genetically modified products, noted the Holmes Report, a PR industry publication.
The father of public relations, Edward Bernays, might never have dreamed up the age of Twitter and Facebook, but he likely wouldnt be surprised to see food-industry tweets and Facebook ads dressed up as news. Bernays knew the importance of constant PR innovation. If the public becomes weary of the old methods used to persuade it, he wrote in his 1928 book Propaganda, then we must simply present our appeals more intelligently. Or, as were seeing with Monsanto and its food industry counterparts, if not exactly intelligently, then at least more surreptitiously: on the podium, the Twitter feeds and the mommy blogs.
Anna Lappé is the author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It and a co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and Real Food Media Project.
Via https://www.facebook.com/SmallPlanetInstitute/posts/10152332630821156
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Big Food uses mommy bloggers to shape public opinion - by Anna Lappe' (Original Post)
bananas
Aug 2014
OP
Thank you DARPA for showing people how to destroy the intended purpose of the internet, which
DocwillCuNow
Aug 2014
#2
underpants
(182,861 posts)1. I have little doubt that Corp.s and others do this all the time
I hear lots of radio ads from companies that will "research" your companies "online reputation" which tells me that if they find something bad (they will or they will probably create it) they likely fix it for you.
These ads tend to be in talk radio so they have a very gullible audience.
I also have found that simple google searches for articles now are swamped by RW bloggers and forums that bury the target on page 2 or lower. No one goes pages deep on google so it effectively scrubs the actual document/article. A bit of a conspiracy theory but it wouldn't surprise me if that was an active program in the right.
DocwillCuNow
(162 posts)2. Thank you DARPA for showing people how to destroy the intended purpose of the internet, which
is of course the proliferation of a limitless supply of cat videos.