Food makers reach out to bloggers
NEW YORK -- The "weird, weird meat" inside the steaming bread pocket looked like Band Aid strips, and the cheese was "low rent," "ghetto" and finally compared to government-issue fare.
After reading Abi Jones' review of the turkey and cheese Lean Pockets on her blog about frozen foods, one might think twice before picking up a box at the supermarket.
However, Nestle SA, maker of Lean Pockets, sent the frozen food to Jones despite past pans of its products on her Web site, www.HeatEatReview.com.
Obsessive Web sites evaluating the newest eats have become must-reads for lovers of every type of food, including frozen dinners, potato chips, candy bars and even energy drinks. While the readerships for sites like IAteAPie and Candy Blog are only a few thousand daily, food companies court them as a way to reach an interested audience for the price of shipping a box.
Courting one blog with a couple of thousand daily readers may not have a huge impact, but marketers can easily reach several such blogs with little effort, said Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant based in Washington, D.C.
"Companies are paying attention to the concept of lots and lots of tiny little markets. Added up, it's significant," Weil said.
The single-minded focus of blogs may be in some ways more valuable than traditional marketing since it's easier to cherry-pick an audience, said Daniel Taylor, a senior analyst of digital advertising and marketing for the Yankee Group.
Blogs like HeatEatReview usually spring from personal obsessions. Jones, for example, started her site after nuking countless frozen meals for lunch at the office. Comparing notes with co-workers, she realized there were no resources for people interested in learning about the newest products in the freezer aisle.
Jones, who's now a designer of user experience for Web sites and computer applications, still tests and rates frozen foods for fun. Her site, which gets about 2,000 visitors daily, provides Jones with a side income from advertising, but not enough to live on.
The proliferation of food review sites also shows shoppers today are more likely to turn to the Web before making a purchase, even if the item in question is a 69 cent bag of chips. There's no way to tell exactly how many food review sites there are now, but the blogosphere has grown exponentially in the past few years.
And since blogs convey a sense of community, bloggers and experts say readers are more likely to trust their recommendations over a TV ad.
"(Food blogs) may not have the mass reach, but it's a more engaged, specific audience," said Greg Zimprich, a spokesman for General Mills Inc. "Their readers are going to care a lot more about a product of ours."