Learning the lessons from Pepsigate

Now that the dust is finally starting to settle over at ScienceBlogs, it seems like a good opportunity to think about the lessons we can all learn from the uproar in the blogosphere that's come to be known as Pepsigate.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, here's a quick recap. Pepsi approached the ScienceBlogs community to host a new blog called Food Frontiers.The blog was created to allow Pepsi to talk about:

"...how the company is developing products rooted in rigorous, science-based nutrition standards to offer consumers more wholesome and enjoyable foods and beverages. The focus will be on innovations in science, nutrition and health policy. In addition to learning more about the transformation of PepsiCo's product portfolio, we'll be seeing some of the innovative ways it is planning to reduce its use of energy, water and packaging..."

So far, so straightforward. But the Food Frontiers blog sparked uproar in the ScienceBlogs community.

In a very short space of time the blog was condemned and rejected by the community, who then began to vent their collective fury on the network owners. As things escalated the decision to shut down the Pepsi blog was taken, but not before a number of the community's highest-profile bloggers had decided to quit the network.

At best, the reputation of ScienceBlogs took a ferocious battering. At worst it could be argued the community imploded over the issue. Needless to say, Pepsi's messaging was about as welcome as a West Ham fan in the Millwall end. Why?

Well, the big - and most obvious - reason is that Pepsi paid for the blog. But the advertorial content was promoted as editorial, crossing a line which was always controversial in the analogue era. On a community network where the audience 'owns' the media, the controversy soon boiled over.

Before we consider the lessons we can all learn from the issue, I should declare an interest. We work with Coca-Cola - one of Pepsi's largest competitors - and our work for them includes content creation and distribution in the digital environment. My purpose in writing this post is not to rub salt in the wound, but to try and identify the lessons we can all learn, both as clients and agencies.

The community:

ScienceBlogs is a loyal, proud and protective community, comprised of credible science bloggers and engaged readers. Bloggers have to be invited to join the network on merit (the invite representing a form of commendation in itself). The ScienceBlogs title tag reads "60+ bloggers selected on the basis of their originality, insight, talent and dedication..."

The lesson is clear - if trusted positions within a community have been attained by invitation only, there really is no other way to get there. Many of SB's most powerful bloggers - Pepsi's 'peers' - would rather have seen the community destroyed than have Pepsi's Food Frontiers sitting alongside their own blogs.

The community was built over time (see 'earned') around a set of shared values - all strong communities are. In this case those values were excellence, credibility, integrity and trust. A shared respect for these values is at the very core of what defines community members and their relationships to one another. A stranger is immediately identifiable, and most likely unwelcome, if they choose not to adopt these bonding values.

Both Pepsi and the network owners were mistaken in believing that they could maintain respect for these values whilst trying to trade an earned position in a commercial transaction. The deal allowed Pepsi to side-step the 'earned' part of the community - the very thing which gives the community it's credibility.

The reality is that the SB community is owned by the people who set up the site - it is the participants who generate the content who have power to publish and act. Post Pepsigate, it transpires that a number of the most respected bloggers already had strained relationships with the network’s owners, harbouring discontent for a number of reasons. The Food Frontiers blog issue may have actually been the catalyst for more deep-seated community unrest to surface, prolonging and compounding the effect of the issue.

Rather than simply entering negotiations with the network's owners, perhaps Pepsi would have benefited from getting to know the lay of the land before they tried to 'join in'. An open approach where they identified the real influencers and talked to them about their plans would have been sensible, safer and most likely welcomed. If feedback had suggested Pepsi's plans for Food Frontiers would be unwelcome, there really wouldn't have been much of a case left for proceeding.

The content:

ScienceBlogs built its reputation by being a platform for credible scientist-bloggers to publish their work. The ideal of scientific integrity (certainly to the scientist) is firmly grounded in impartiality and objectivity. This is inescapable and is at the core of ScienceBlogs' content offering. Food Frontiers used the language of science and posed as a credible science blog - but impartiality and objectivity do not always mix well with corporate agenda.

The SB community is made up of intelligent articulate people. The attempt to dress up Food Frontiers as a legitimate science blog was never going to work on this audience. Instead, the attempt in itself became a further insult to the community. One blogger got straight to the point:

"You won't be seeing much criticism of Pepsico corporate policies, or the bad nutritional habits spread by cheap fast food, or even any behind-the-scenes stories about the lives of Pepsico employees that paints a picture of the place as anything less than Edenesque."

The method of approach:

It's crucial to understand that there was very little money involved in the building of the ScienceBlogs community. This is often the case with strong online communities. Members are there because the community is their passion, they're not doing it for the money.

Pepsi failed to grasp that companies cannot buy their way in to trusted positions within online communities. It's not a new lesson: trust and respect have never really been for sale. Pepsi's approach seemed to betray an old school mindset when pushing corporate messaging was a more simple matter of buying influential media space.

The deal between Pepsi and the ScienceBlogs owners was done in secrecy without any community consultation. The owners of the Food Frontiers blog itself were uncovered by an invited blogger on the network who quickly drew others' attention to it.

The lack of openness on behalf of both Pepsi and the network owners was undeniably untrustworthy behaviour. The episode was shrouded in an air of scandal before it even kicked off, alarm bells really should have been ringing pre-launch. Perhaps most importantly here, the lack of consultation meant that when the community started to rail against the issue, the network's owners were shut out of the community discussions by many bloggers. The damage couldn't be easily repaired.

The purpose of this post is not to draw attention to shortcomings on the part of either Pepsi or Scienceblogs' owners. And we're certainly not saying that this kind of outreach initiative has no part in a corporate comms strategy in the twenty-first century.

But in today's increasingly complex, socially-connected media world, the rules of engagement are continually being rewritten - although funnily enough, age-old themes and etiquettes seem to regularly resurface. Mistakes will be made along the journey - the important thing is what we can all learn from them.