Off Topic: Spot the ‘Flog’

From the NY Times today (rounding up the best and worst in advertising in 2006):

FLOGS A tip of the cap to Tom Siebert, a reporter for MediaPost, for coining the word “flog” to refer to a fake blog that poses as a consumer creation but is actually produced by professionals to sell products.

A notorious flog was exposed last week, when bloggers discovered that a video blog in praise of the Sony PSP was created by Zipatoni, an agency owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies. The video blog pretended to be the work of Charlie, an amateur hip-hop artist.

Another blog much reviled after its exposure as a flog was created by Edelman, part of Daniel J. Edelman Inc., on behalf of Wal-Mart Stores. The flog posed as the travel diary of a couple, but did not disclose they were paid for their upbeat posts about Wal-Mart. The deception earned a rebuke from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association for violating its code of ethics.

As user-generated content has gone from scary to essential for marketers in the course of about 12 months, flogs have arisen to try and exploit the trend. I propose a game to foil the cynical agencies who think users can and should be fooled: “Spot the Flog.” It could extend beyond “flogs” themselves to any attempt by a corporation or marketer to masquerade as a user (i.e., lonelygirl15).