pepsi’s misguided foray into science blogging

If you’ve been following the news from the popular science blogosphere, you probably know that the denizens of ScienceBlogs are in a tizzy over PepsiCo’s new corporate blog being integrated into their collective in what we could probably assume to be a lucrative deal. This isn’t ScienceBlogs’ first foray into sponsored blogs, but whereas Shell and GE were pretty sparse on content and advertising, Pepsi’s effort is underpinning what they call an informative video series about their efforts in scientific food production, and what’s far more likely to be little more than a series of puff piece infomercials. And on top of that, the blog is to be ran by researchers who are employed by the company and edited by the management of ScienceBlogs. Call me a pessimist, but I’m not sure that this corporate blog is going to get anywhere, and its unveiling is most likely to be its high point.

Now, I’m just going to let Orac, PalMD, and PZ do the venting about the conflicts of interest and questionable premises behind Pepsi’s foray into science blogging, and instead, focus on why this was a bad idea for both the company and the blog network. First and foremost, the company is outright admitting that it’s extending its existing PR effort into a science blog network and promising to run its infomercials among skeptical and very fiercely independent and opinionated scientists, mathematicians and engineers. What expressions come to your mind about this kind of arrangement? How about “just asking for trouble,” or maybe “diving into a tank of hungry sharks” for a good metaphor? Secondly, while the blog is supposedly going to be filled with posts by senior scientists at PepsiCo, I’m having a little trouble picturing the researchers spending their days blogging away and debating with readers instead of actually working in the lab. A more likely scenario is that they’ll just review something pre-written by the PR staff to check for obvious scientific errors and get it posted under their names. Again, the whole point is to start a conversation about what Pepsi wants to talk about, and criticizing a proprietary formulation in an objective light is probably not in the company’s interests.

And that brings us to the third problem, which is the nature of corporate blogs themselves and why so many of them are such dismal efforts as far as actual bloggers are concerned. Because official blogs represent a very specific and easily identifiable brand, they can’t afford to be controversial. Everything they put out should be at least appropriate for a news quote, and they can’t afford to tangle in messy and politically charged debates as not to alienate potential customers, or stir up unwelcome attention for the press. That means that bland is the only option. Anything else is simply too costly. But this requisite blandness also kills a blog very quickly since the whole point of a blog is to speak your mind. I don’t pretend to run the most objective thing on the web and neither would I want to because Weird Things is my space to talk about things I want to talk about, to tackle a fiercely debated controversy or manufactroversy without any editorial control or leashes. The result is biased, personal, and often snarky. And that’s ok because that’s what a blog is supposed to be. Were this blog trying to be anything else, it would’ve probably died in just a few months after its inception. But science bloggers are not worried about stirring up a controversy. In fact we often embrace it to give our readers something they can really sink their teeth into, and something to argue about and debate.

So if the goal of Pepsi’s blog is to promote a certain image for their business and it has to self-censor just to be around without much of a ruckus (well other than the one raised by the ScienceBlogs’ contributors), what exactly does the blog have to offer us other than a bland series of infomercials made by PR flacks? Sure, the money will help keep the blog network running, but it seems like a major waste of effort on Pepsi’s part to try and impersonate a popular science blog, probably because one of the marketing managers threw out a few social media buzzwords at a meeting. People don’t really want to talk to a faceless corporation’s employees, or “engage in a constructive debate about what the company’s brand means to them” in PR-speak. They want to talk to people. Flesh and blood, opinionated people with a personality and the ability to present something in an engaging way. They don’t want to read ads or watered down press releases that don’t get published by reporters on a busy news day, and that’s why corporate blogs should remain on their company’s site instead of trying to barge into the popular science world and expect to be accepted with open arms. If the comments on the Food Frontiers’ introductory post are any indication, that’s just not going to happen.

update 07.08.2010: The corporate overlords of ScienceBlogs have officially killed Pepsi’s project and seem to be trying to settle their bloggers’ revolt with apologies. My personal bet is that after the deluge of comments from angry readers and bloggers either refusing to write, or setting up shop elsewhere, Bly decided it just isn’t worth it to have a corporate blog on his network and Pepsi’s PR people were probably not too keen on moving forward in such hostile territory, leaving Food Frontiers where it belongs: on a corporate site.