UPDATE! (10/07/06): Shortly after I had posted the following post I contacted Pokerlistings.co.ee and received a friendly reply saying that the book was waiting for me at their office. Yesterday I picked it up and I am now the proud owner of Juhan Kivirähk's book "Mees, kes teadis ussisõnu." They have not yet reached the 100 post/book target but are well on their way. The campaign can already be considered a success because they have been mentioned in a few Estonian top blogs and their Google search results have improved dramatically in Estonia (try a search for "pokker" on google.ee). Before you read any further I should inform you that this post is somewhat commercial in nature but the concept is very intriguing.
Recently I stumbled upon an interesting offer from the on-line casino portal Pokerlistings.co.ee who will give you a book for free ("Mees, kes teadis ussisõnu" by Juhan Kivirähk) if you mention their portal on your blog. I don't go to casinos and I don't like to gamble because it doesn't provide any thrills for me. I also know that casino-addiction is a real problem and can cause a lot of pain and misery for the families of "addicted" people. But I also believe that everybody has the free right to do what they want with their own lives and hard earned money. I am also intrigued by Pokerlistings.co.ee's marketing strategy: in-post blog marketing.
The concept itself is not brand new to the marketing world but has only recently started to gain more attention. Zachary Rodgers discusses blog marketing in his post "Measuring Blog Marketing" and has devoted a large share of it to in-post marketing. There is also a company called PayPerPost making a living off this concept and even claims to have invented it. PayPerPost pays bloggers if they write about products, services and companies. They are the mediator between the company who wants to advertise and the blogger who spreads the word (or in this case ad-writer). But according to their concept PayPerPost approves posts only if they meet the "requirements". In essence you might not get paid if the client does not like your opinion. In my opinion this has a very negative influence on bloggers as they might not express their honest opinion due to the fear of getting their compensation vetoed.
Now let's take a closer look at the specific case at hand. In their campaign Pokelistings.co.ee claims that they don't want you to write articles glorifying their company or services. In fact, they urge you to write honestly about what you think of their services. No strings attached. If you honestly believe that casinos are temples of hell then by all meas say so... and as long as you mention their site you will still receive your free book (at least the first 100 bloggers as the supply of books is not infinite).
So what does Pokelistings.co.ee get out of this? The thing that matters most – web ranking. The more links to Pokerlistings.co.ee on different blogs/websites the higher the search ranking. Simple. Instead of the generic "look how super-good our on-line casino is" banner they get to spread the word, increase their ranking and receive honest feedback. And in the end that's what really counts - what people honestly think without the mumbo-jumbo.
And how did I stumble upon this campaign? Through a blog of course (blog.taavi) while browsing Orkut's social networks. The post seemed interesting enough that I decided to take a look at Pokerlistings.co.ee. I would never have done that with a simple banned or AdSense ad and if I was a casino kind-of-guy I just might have played a few games of online poker.
It's no longer a suprise that ITC development is drastically changing media and the advertising that goes with it. Paul McEnany has written a thought provoking post "Advertising Is Dead" on Hee-Haw marketing about the change that is sweeping through the advertising world:
I haven't received my book yet but I hope that after writing to Pokerlistings.co.ee as instructed I will one day receive my "free" copy of Kivirähk's book. I have also asked them to keep me updated about the results of the campaign so that we could see how well it's actually working. Although I might not be a fan of on-line gambling I think Pokerlistings.co.ee is definitely on the right track when it comes to on-line advertising. It's a win-win situation for all of us.So, the picture should be even clearer. Advertising is dead, but marketing isn’t. We’ve started to adapt to this new environment by doing the only thing we could do, stop advertising, and just embrace the humanity of it all.
Now, we’ve become conversationalists, trying desperately to elicit some response where before we simply ignored it. And that’s a good thing. The implication is that we no longer own it or control it. Now we earn it.
