Rimmel and Astroturfing

I was looking through my referrers and found a link from this BabyExpert Forum, linking through to one of the sessions on mobile use I had written up the other week.

Rimmel campaign in the UK. We created phonewear – mobile is a reflection of you and your personality. Rimmel can and built on this. A number was in a TV ad – phone a number -get told to text to a shortcode, got free Rimmel screensaver. You got a silver image – or a ‘gold’ crown – drive you to the MySpace page, with a code, to win 25GBP of goodies. On day 1, had 1000 calls and a 50% conversion rate No other ads.. (only a few days old).

They were discussing a post on the forum and whether it was legitimate or not, as it was encouraging people to text a shortcode and there was concern that this was a scam. My post apparently gave them a reason to think it was legitimate.

On a closer look at the original forum post however has all the hallmarks of being a paid placement, ie some agency somewhere is running a buzz campaign.

just got £25 worth of free stuff off Rimmel by accident!!!
Last night i was watching TV with a few friends and some wine, and that new Rimmel advert came on, you know the one where the bloke wakes up with a number written on this arm. Anyway we wondered what would happen if you phoned the number?
I phoned the number and where given a number to text, which we thought was a bit rubbish but decided to text it anyway. After I text the number I got a free sparkely wallpaper sent to my phoned and a message saying I won £25 of Rimmel Goodies, Which is pretty awesome.
I just thought I’d let you all know because I think its a bit of a secret

Here’s the number you need to text 83338, so you dont have to waste your money phoning. Good Luck!

There are a number of signs that point this way. I may be wrong, but the indications are strong.

• The poster is a newbie, this is her first post
• The same username has posted the SAME message on multiple beauty forums. These include Marie Claire and Prima
• the language is off. This is subtle, as this message has mistakes, but it does not feel real.
• the campaign is new and timebound, so perfect for this type of marketing.

Whilst I support the use of outreach campaigns, I would never recommend doing this way. Instead, the message should have clearly stated that the writer was associated with the campaign, but still thought it was something that the readers would appreciate. Going out and being anonymous has backfired in this case, as posters are suspicious and think it is a scam (look a the Prima messages) and Rimmel, by association, are not getting good vibes.