I love this recent article from Advertising Age because it fabulously illustrates what we are always preaching about online marketing – effectively engaging your audience.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks with no internet access you have heard about the “Motrin Moms” social media/PR disaster that Johnson & Johnson recently endured. Well, one of the key figures in voicing her opinions online about this campaign was mommy blogger Katja Presnal, creating a YouTube video that featured all the backlash on Twitter. As of this post it has been viewed over 71,000 times, and as we know Johnson & Johnson has since pulled the campaign and apologized.

Okay, old news. And the mass assumption? This blogger was probably some anti-corporate sort that uses her online influence to bash evil companies whenever she gets a chance, right? Wrong!

Just a few days after she stopped talking about the Motrin fiasco, she was blogging about Wal-Mart – and how great it was. It seems Wal-Mart has engaged her to become a part of their Eleven Moms panel and she was writing about the unveiling of a “Salon Secret” – which turns out to be P&G’s Pantene haircare line. Being part of the panel also included a trip to the Campbell’s Soup test kitchen and offices of Coca-Cola Co. and Kellogg Co. where the mommy bloggers weighed in on their opinions. Katja Presnal pointed out that she is not paid by Wal-Mart nor do they push stories on her, but that the trip was all expenses paid.

How did she feel about Wal-Mart after her trip?

“Ms. Presnal said her opinion of Wal-Mart has improved considerably since she got involved in the program and learned more about the retailer’s sustainability and charitable efforts. She admitted she didn’t shop at Wal-Mart often before she got involved with Eleven Moms, particularly given that her online store focuses on the luxury market.”

Amazing. So on the one hand we have Motrin attempting to reach the “mommy market” by pushing a campaign on them that I suspect not too many moms were involved in creating, and on the other we have a company that has far more negative press to battle with that developed a strategy so effective that the same audience is speaking positively about their brand(s).

This is a perfect example of how just about any company can find success engaging bloggers online if they do their research and ensure they are giving them an opportunity to speak, rather than speaking at them (or, in this case, severely insulting and infuriating them). Yes, yes ,I did just rant about this engagement issue in another recent post, but examples like Motrin just remind me that everyone has still not got the message.

Have you got any inspiring examples to share about how companies are effectively engaging bloggers?