According to the New York Times bloggers are living in a world of 24/7 stress. Berocca news jacked this by setting up a website offering a free blogger relief pack to rejuvenate stressed bloggers with much needed vitamins and free goodies. That's a great strategy to create some online buzz about your product, it which is why worked well with many bloggers picking up on the story and blogging about it.

That was in June. Two months passed and for many of us there was no sign of the relief pack. Not good news for blogger's stress levels, or the nice people at Berocca who must have been quite concerned by posts like this declaring the exercise a PR fail. Since commenting on that post, I received a relief pack in just a matter of days. Coincidence?

To avoid this Berocca should have carried out a weekly send out of relief packs so that bloggers weren't waiting too long to receive their goody bag. And, when they did send out the relief packs they should have taken a little time to address the nice letter inside with my name. Dear blogger doesn't exactly build up a personal relationship with the brand. That said I'm very impressed by the campaign. It's very brave for a non-techy brand to experiment with blogger outreach and I commend that. Also, it's especially important to try relationship building exercises like this during a recession when premium brands like Berocca are in danger of being abandoned by consumers in favour of cheaper supermarket versions.

Well done Berocca, this blogger is now full of vitamin goodness and will stay that way.

Labels: berocca, blogger outreach, blogger relief, buzz, credit crunch, formby, matthew watson, new york times, recession, simon collister, vitamins