Sembra proprio che il Financial Times non riesca a mandar giù il fenomeno dei blog. E lo conferma anche il primo post del blog appena inaugurato dal quotidiano. Chiedersi, oggi, se Karl Marx e George Orwell avrebbero utilizzato lo strumento del blog mi sembra un esercizio completamente inutile, visto che i due hanno utilizzato - e bene - gli strumenti che avevano a disposizione al loro tempo.

Tags: pr

Guinnes, l’azienda irlandese che produce l’omonima birra, ha inaugurato un blog. La pagina iniziale è una strana “landing page” dove vi viene chiesto il Paese d’origine e la data di nascita. Se rispondete correttamente - posto che abbiate superato i 18 anni - ovvero che visitate il blog da una “other country” (rispetto a England, Scotland e Wales), la vostra visita finisce qui, perché vi reindirizzano verso una pagina in cui c’è un testo piuttosto confuso che adduce delle improbabili “legal reasons” per il blocco della navigazione.

Siccome ho superato i cinquant’anni, non esistono “legal reasons” che mi possano impedire la visita di un blog che parla di birre o di alcolici (anche ad altissima gradazione, come l’abruzzese Centerbe Toro di Tocco a Casauria, che raggiunge i 70°), questo blocco mi ha sorpreso e contrariato. Quindi, sono tornato indietro alla “landing page” e ho modificato la mia provenienza in Scotland (è nota la mia somiglianza con Sean Connery, che peraltro viene rilevata solamente da persone con gravissimi problemi di vista). Con una certa sorpresa, sono entrato nel blog senza problemi, e mi sono trovato davanti il seguente testo (che lascio immutato, ovviamente in inglese):

GUINNESS® and Gateway pages

OK, it’s Lou here sitting at my desk just gobsmacked at the response and interest we have in the blog already. We only really got it running live on Wednesday and were really not expecting the kind of response we’ve had so soon but it’s really great. First, let me say a massive ‘thank you’ to everyone who’s come and had a look at the blog and either left us comments or posted comments on their own sites. When we started thinking about this whole project our objective was to see if we would really engage with people interested in Guinness so we are glad to have the opportunity to do this so quickly.

Aside from lots of posts providing encouragement (thanks as it’s all a bit scary!), there seems to be one issue that a few people have picked up on. Lots of people are asking about the thing we call a ‘gateway page’ - you’ll have noticed that when you first try and visit our blog you get a page asking for your age and where you’re from. There’s a few points I’d like to make about this page.

1) We HAVE to have this sort of gateway page for to ensure we are marketing GUINNESS® responsibly and for legal reasons - we have a strict marketing code we adhere to and lots of countries have different policies and laws regarding the legal age at which people can view materials to do with alcoholic products and how alcohol brands can and cannot market their goods. For this reason we are legally bound to ask people where they are from (in case it’s a country that doesn’t allow alcohol marketing) and how old they are (to ensure they are of legal purchase age). This is the right thing to be doing and that’s the reason for having a gateway page in the first place.

2) Next, lots of people from countries outside of the UK are asking why they can’t access the blog. There are two answers to this. Obviously Guinness is one great brand that’s widely loved in about 150 countries. But the drinkers in those countries are all different so what the various marketing teams get up to differs also. What’s on this blog is specifically about our GB plans - hence the focus on those drinkers. There are legal issues with us making content the GB team have written available to other countries.

Secondly and to be really honest we really didn’t think anyone from outside the UK would be interested in what we had to say. BUT, now that we have seen that there is interest from people outside of the UK we are going to talk to our teams and work out if there’s a way to open the blog up so everyone can see it (at least people in countries where marketing alcohol is not prohibited). This will take us a while so please bear with us - we’ll keep you posted.

We’ll be putting up more posts shortly and we are learning as we go so keep the comments coming!

Incredibile, ma vero !!! Mi piacerebbe conoscere questi attenti osservatori della blogosfera, questi strateghi della comunicazione online, questi funamboli del marketing globale… Peccato… Ero un estimatore della birra Guinness, ma non vedo per quale motivo dovrei continuare a consumarla se l’azienda che la produce ritiene che io non abbia il diritto di leggere il suo blog.

Tags: Marketing, pr