Dot's Flowers: Lack of Ethics? How About Lack of Imagination?

''No more driving to the corner to buy flowers and hand-deliver them," he wrote on his Web page. ''Nope. Now I go online to places like Dot Flowers.com and 1-800-Flowers. I like Dot a little better just because of the personal touch." - Jeff Cutler's quote, "For a fee, some blogs boost firms", Boston Globe, June 26, 2005 (thanks Tom for the tip!)

Nice recommendation any company would certainly cherish. This particular referral was made by blogger Jeff Cutler on his blog April 8th. Jeff's never actually ordered anything from Dot's. And he was paid $5 by Dot's ad agency USWeb for the blog mention, which he neglects to disclose. After the Boston Globe outs USWeb's "blogger relations" campaign for Dot's Flowers, Jeff modifies his original April 8th posting (no permalink) and writes more about the controversy.

All in all, Dot's Flowers seems pleased:

Cutler, who does not disclose the payment on his blog, is one of more than 2,000 bloggers whom marketer USWeb enlisted to hawk products and services. That helped the nascent florist double its sales in the first three months and shoot up near the top of Google's search list, according to USWeb. - Boston Globe

Just as easily as Dot's leveraged the blogosphere to gain Googlejuice, bloggers can bring it down. For instance,

• Jeff Jarvis, now listed #5 in Google search results under "Dell Sucks" entries writes: "DELL SUCKS. DELL LIES. Put that in your Google and smoke it, Dell."
• Seth Godin writes (now #21 for on a search for "Skycasters"): "One day, you might be considering installing Skycasters satellite internet access. (Satellite Internet DiRECWAY broadband satellite internet access satellite ISP by Skycasters.) It's possible that a google search as part of your due diligence would bring you to this posting. If so, then it's worth the space it is taking up. Don't."

(BTW, if you are going to Google bomb, please make certain that your post headline includes the company name!) Alright,alright, although it's tempting I'm not advocating search engine wars. The ethics issues has been covered well (especially read these two posts where the authors do citizen journalism, more digging than merely pointing to Boston Globe story and engage in conversations with USWeb and Cutler). For instance, blogger John Cass finds the FTC's rules on Internet advertising:

"When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed."

I'm too jaded to be appalled by lack of ethics, but I am amazed by the lack of imagination. Paying bloggers $5 for a blog mention (assuming transparency)? Original, huh?

What are some alternatives? There's plenty. Here's an off-the-cuff one for starters.

Flowers are given during major life events like weddings and funerals and as symbolic gestures that signify 'I'm thinking of you.' They're given on special heart-felt occasions to people you're close to or would like to be closer to: you give them to your date at your prom, your partner of twenty-five years, your Mom on her birthday, your cousin on their graduation from law school. These are usually emotion-filled moments ripe with compelling story potential circling the biggies in people's lives.

I'm not clear on the campaign's budget (let's say it was 2000 X $5 = $10000). You could announce a story contest spread over the next six to twelve months.  Award $50 gift certificate for up to 200 bloggers on their best 'flower moment' stories. Real stories from real people. The certificate gives bloggers a chance to establish a real relationship with Dot's Flowers. The stories can encompass all sorts of universal "I'm thinking of you" moments. For instance,

• Anniversary stories - can run the gamut from telling about how you met, marriage memories and what you cherish in each other. Ask for submissions from authors and blog readers (sometimes authors aren't aware of a contest) on or near their anniversary dates.
• General love stories - possibly a month long contest beginning in January with a round-up of the best the week before Valentine's Day
• Memorial tributes and remembrances - a touchy subject, but I think many people want to talk about the people they love once more; for instance see Julie Leung's piece on her brother, mine on my Dad. These type of posts surprisingly aren't dark and morbid.
• Quirkiest - random, odd, original moments when you actually did give someone a gift of flowers

It's quite possible NONE of these stories directly mention Dot's Flowers but are perfect times where flowers might have been part of the experience. The "buzz" (really a long-term learning model not short-term awareness) would be generated anyway:

• Many of the bloggers will mention that their posts were Dot's Flowers award winners. Or ask their readers to submit in their posts for award consideration.
• Many of the bloggers will actually try out the Dot's Flowers service out for themselves with their gift certs and potentially write about  (yep, there's absolutely no guarantee). Anything they write about would then be based on actual first-hand experience by influential mavens and connectors. I actually prefer to write about great customer service experiences over bad (those are a dime a dozen) and have one real case story coming this week.
• Other bloggers will link to their favorite stories, be inspired to write their own stories even after the contest close or find the full list of winning stories by category via the Dot's Flower's site. Since blogger etiquette has authors credit their sources, there ought to be a lot of linklove over to the award-winning story list.
• The novelty of the approach could generate additional online and traditional press mentions. (And positive buzz beats the ill-will generated by press mentions like the Boston Globe's piece.)
• Dot's Flowers over time becomes associated with moving, emotion-laden 'flower moments' which are now commemorated in real stories which opens the possibility of symbolically slowing down the momemt by the gift of the beauty of flowers.
• And by listening to the stories, Dot's Flowers will learn a lot about their potential customers, what moves them, and what they care about.

What do you think are other alternatives that Dot's Flowers could have initiated even without their own blog?

(Flickr photo by Pak Gwei)

Comments

[John Cass]

Evelyn,

Great post, thanks for the mention.

Just a note you state that Jeff changed his post, I don't believe he did. If you mean that he did not initially mention that he had not been to the site. I checked his site on the day the article came out and he did mention he had not been to the site. Or did you mean something else?

as for ideas for promoting dot flowers, I think competitions are a great idea. I would have hired ePrize.com.

John

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

John, Thanks, I think you did a superb job engaging in conversation with USWeb. Most blogs I Technorati'ed only pointed to the Boston Globe story and then gave their opinion without even checking out Jeff's blog!!

It was a bit buried, but I also reference Steve Garfield's post which was very informative too, see:

http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2005/06/boston-globe-gets-story-wrong-right.html

Steve basically had a conversation with Jeff Cutler himself via email. Cutler edited the April 8th post he says when the story came out. He says:

"I have updated my blog so there is no future misinterpretation, but Jenn Ableson got it right when she compiled the facts."

[Jeff Cutler]

At the risk of starting another firestorm - or perhaps it's a storm merely the strength of a struggling match - I wanted to comment on my situation.
As Evelyn says correctly, I did change my blog the moment I found out what Jenn had written in the Boston Globe. My mistakes, as written in subsequent blogs on my site - www.jeffcutler.com/blog.html - and in my comments to Jenn and Steve, were that I didn't know that blogs had such power AND I fooled myself into thinking Jenn wasn't out to write a stimulating piece, but only was covering me because we once worked together.
OHHHH?? They worked together. Well, we worked the same beat for local papers - not really competing as one is an afternoon paper and one is a weekly. But she and I would cover meetings in Hingham and would chat occasionally during dull spots.
I've been practicing journalism, PR, advertising, marketing and other forms of paid writing since 1986. I did the first blogs as a whim and to see if anything would come of it.
Well, I still have USWeb as a client and have almost more work than I can handle. I also have other clients as a result of Jenn's story and as a result of the publicity generated on other blogs about the issue.
AND, I've landed a print column with the Herald's chain of papers - please read some recent ones they haven't archived yet by searching for "Jeff Cutler" on http://www.townonline.com.
Back when I wrote my first book - Mountain Bike America: Boston - I thought my 15 minutes had come and gone on a superior guide book for mountain bikers. It seems that I was wrong and I might have just experienced a few minutes there and now am experiencing a few minutes here.
If you've got questions, ask them of me directly. As you should know if you've done your research, my site is the FIRST listing on Google, so I'm not that hard to find.
Later,
Jeff