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The curious case of the phantom blogger

PR agency caught promoting ČSOB with fake blog

By Victor Velek
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 30th, 2008 issue

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Klára Franková has strong opinions about Internet banking.
Posting on her blog earlier this month, hosted on the server of the daily Lidové noviny, Franková laid into the practices and no-fee promises of mBank, the Polish Internet bank that launched in this country last year. The bank could not hold a candle to the large Czech bank ČSOB, which would soon be launching its own electronic payment system, called PaySec.
“There is a trustworthy institution behind PaySec that should be a guarantee of quality, robustness and security of the system,” Franková posted on her blog April 10.
Franková had the right to share her opinions, of course, except for one small problem: she doesn’t exist.
In reality, Franková, a “political science student,” was a mirage masterminded by Bison & Rose, the Prague-based public relations agency, to promote the launch of ČSOB’s PaySec system. Franková’s posts were fictitious and her purported photo was ripped from the Internet.
The Franková case, which was first exposed by the online journalist Adam Javůrek, is the most prominent example in the Czech Republic of a dubious marketing practice that has been slowly spreading around the world, though it is not widespread in the country yet, Javůrek said.
In the United States and Western Europe, fake blogs, also called “flogs,” have a longer tradition. In 2006, for example, the U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart was caught burnishing its image through bloggers. That same year, a flog created by a marketing firm to praise Sony was also exposed.
Flogs are not the only questionable marketing method plaguing the Internet.
For instance, Sitelynx, a firm hired by the UK daily The Times to enhance its search engine performance, recently admitted one of its employees seeded thousands of links to the newspaper’s articles on social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us and Yahoo! Answers.
It is common knowledge that online consumer reviews for books, hotels, software and various other services and
products are frequently written by marketing firms.
Unlike flogs, advertisements disguised as consumer reviews are quite common in the Czech Republic, according to Javůrek.
Banks’ secrets
ČSOB commissioned Bison & Rose to promote PaySec earlier this year and assigned one of the agency’s managers to provide information about the product to journalists and independent bloggers, the agency said.
“Instead, he used public blog sites and posted his own texts under fake identities,” said Roman Šmíd, a managing director of Bison & Rose.
At first, Bison & Rose claimed the fake blogging was the “private activity of an intern.” Later on, it confessed that the blogs were created by an employee as part of the ČSOB campaign, refusing to name the employee. Such a campaign is at odds with PR ethics, the firm acknowledged.
“Besides the internal actions we’ve taken, notably financial and disciplinary sanctions and training of all employees in public relations ethics, the agency is ready to undergo an independent audit of our internal processes,” Šmíd said.
According to ČSOB spokesman Marek Roll, Bison & Rose has been held fully responsible for the “unpleasant situation.” However, he declined to say whether ČSOB would still work with the PR firm.
The affair could turn into a legal dispute as mBank, the fictional Klára’s victim, is considering filing a lawsuit. “At the moment, the case is being analyzed by our lawyers,” said mBank spokesman Tomáš Vyšohlíd.
The Polish mBank “would never resort to using made-up disappointed customers” or “fake happy clients” in order to boost its image, he added. That bold statement notwithstanding, however, mBank is far from unblemished when it comes to deceptive marketing.
Its arrival in Slovakia last year coincided with the establishment of the Initiative Against Hidden Banking Fees. The head of the group, Svetlana Waradzinová, claimed she set up the “informal initiative” with a “couple of friends” to fight hidden banking fees. In reality, the association was part of mBank’s marketing campaign.
It seems that local banks are especially susceptible to deceitful marketing methods. In yet another case, the Czech arm of Ogilvy PR was caught seeding fake customer reviews on financial news servers. The bogus posts touted GE Money Bank, one of Ogilvy’s clients.
Given the heightened activity of marketing companies on the Internet, Bison & Rose’s fake blog may be only the tip of the iceberg. A source who asked to remain anonymous told The Prague Post that some local marketing agencies have nurtured blogs established with the intention of being offered to their clients as ad vehicles.
The European Union is targeting unfair commercial practices, including stealth Internet marketing, with its new consumer protection directive. The legislation comprises a blacklist of outlawed practices, including hidden advertising and advertising disguised as consumers’ opinions.
The EU directive became Czech law in February, placing the Bison & Rose blogs at odds not only with ethics but also the law.
However, it remains to be seen how effectively the new law will be implemented and what positive impact it will have on online marketing. Statistics from the Czech Retail Inspection (ČOI), the country’s consumer rights watchdog, offer a pessimistic perspective.
The ČOI imposed an average penalty of less than 2,500 Kč last year, which will likely do little to deter such practices, especially when large companies are concerned.

Victor Velek can be reached at vvelek@praguepost.com


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