October 24, 2005
the stormhoek thing
Gives "Sponsored Link" a whole new meaning bwah ha ha ha...
What do us bloggers like getting more than anything? Links, of course.
So my client, the groovy cats at Stormhoek, decided to up the ante.
Here's the deal. If you're a blogger, and I link to you under "The Stormhoek Thing" banner, Stormhoek will send you a complimentary bottle of Stormhoek wine.
[CAVEAT: We can only ship bottles to where it's legal to do so. Which means, for example, until we get the new U.S. distibutor up to speed around New Year's, you Americans may have to wait a while for the bottle to arrive. Apologies in advance.]
If you get linked by "The Stormhoek Thing", just drop me an e-mail with you mailing address and I'll pass it along to Charles, the Stormhoek guy in charge of shipping. With a bit of luck you'll get your bottle via DHL [our main courier] within a few days.
You're free to have the bottle, no strings attached. No need to blog about it or anything. And yeah, if you want to blog something negative about it, that's perfectly OK as well. Frankly, we'd prefer the honest feedback, good or bad.
On one level, yeah, call it shameless marketing [Shameless! Hurrah!]. On another level, the Stormhoek guys dig the whole blogosphere thing, and would rather blow their marketing budget on us, than blowing it on traditional media. So what the hell.
This is just an experiment. I have no earthly idea why I'm doing this, other than I think it could be rather groovy. Whatever. Watch this space etc.
Anything else I've left out?
Thanks.
[The Stormhoek Thing:] First bottle goes to Suw Charman, for wearing an iMachiavellian t-shirt in the New York Apple Store. Hey Suw, if you want, please send me your mailing address. Thanks. Rock on.
Posted by hugh macleod at October 24, 2005 11:42 PM | TrackBackA link and a drink: double your pleasure
Posted by: Tyler at October 25, 2005 3:43 PMPatience is a virtue...
Posted by: Jim Turner at October 25, 2005 3:47 PMOne of the most interesting things about blog-based marketing is how it divvies up the spoils.
Most (all?) bloggers want more readers. Blog marketing wants to increase the profile of a brand (at least partly) by increasing the chatter.
So if you blog about something that's being marketed via blogs, the blog marketing people have an interest in making that known.
In effect, you harness a little piece of that marketing effort for your own blog, in a fairly symbiotic way.
Witness: http://www.google.com/search?q=stormhoek+-site%3Agapingvoid.com+-site%3Astormhoek.com
A couple obvious downsides of course are:
1) If you're too transparent about it the whole thing can backfire. Damage to the brand-blog's integrity can damage your own.
2) If a blog marketing campaign is sufficiently high-profile, or its client is, or it looks like it's making someone a ton of money, then the spammers might get into the game. (ouch)
Posted by: frotsy at October 25, 2005 7:20 PMThe anticipation is killing us over here in "The States"! (Although it is fun to watch the whole Stormhoek / blogsphere marketing idea play out.)
Dave Wheeler
Yeah Dave, I think it'll get a lot more interesting once we hit the States. For one thing, Yanks dig this kind of approach more than the Euros, generally.
Posted by: hugh macleod at October 25, 2005 9:00 PMWhy thank you, Hugh! Glad you like the wearing of the t-shirt and thanks for the bottle of Stormhoek. Had a wee snifter of it at Our Social World, so be interesting to see how a whole bottled goes down.
I, of course, must thank my friend Dan Dickinson for taking the photo in the first place, my family, my agent, Apple for having a store in New York, NTK for giving me the t-shirt, whoever it was that designed the t-shirt...
Oh, wait, this isn't the Oscars? Fuckit.
Posted by: Suw at October 25, 2005 9:53 PMYeah, I forgot to mention the Stormhoek anticipation thing. (I'm in California.)
How about a countdown ticker or something, "days until US bloggers can get drunk on Stormhoek?"
Man, that gives me ideas. How expensive is this wine anyway?
Also somewhat on-topic: I just saw a Hugh ad for "up your budget" in an unexpected place: indieWIRE. Of course I clicked, even though I don't drive. ;-)
(Meta: accidentally typo'd myself as "frotsy" which is both scary and close to one of my other nicknames...)
Posted by: frosty at October 25, 2005 11:28 PMAny plans to add Canada to the list?
Posted by: Ken Dyck at October 26, 2005 12:12 AMUhh... just call me dumbass, but I don't get it.
What chew gotta do to get linked to?
Posted by: Shaded at October 26, 2005 12:50 AMMexico gets in line, sweet-talks a scalper, gets the ticket and sits to wait for the link/wine/blurry vision
Posted by: Andres B at October 26, 2005 3:00 AMThe cartoon reminds me of the saying: "Women motivate us to do great things - and then hinder us doing it."
Posted by: shtikl at October 26, 2005 6:54 AMAh, so we need to wait for you to link to us FIRST, so the question that arises is 'what exactly would attract your attention?'
If it's any help, Canada encourages people to drink, and I know you can order alcohol from out of the country if it's shipping courier. I know that wine and hard liquor that isn't available domestically can be ordered by normal citizens without issue; so long as it doesn't ship via post.
Posted by: Richard at October 26, 2005 9:18 PM"Ah, so we need to wait for you to link to us FIRST, so the question that arises is 'what exactly would attract your attention?'"
I have no definitive answer to that. I'm guessing it'll be people doing interesting stuff with their whole "Global Microbrand" thing. That's where my radar is is tuning towards, anyway.
Posted by: hugh macleod at October 27, 2005 10:18 PMI'm game. And, I'm hard at work developing my version of the global microbrand - with all credit for the inspiration going to you.
Thanks...
Posted by: The Jamoker at October 31, 2005 2:17 AM