The front page of this week’s B&T says social media marketing is about to become massive. Of course some of us have known this for a long time.

Roy Morgan is moving into word of mouth and social media research. The Population has just launched, one of the first pure social media agencies. Neilsen Online is montioring conversation buzz in the blogosphere. And Nestle has just launched Australia’s biggest social media campaign costing around $1 million.

Except the campaign is shit. And not even a social media campaign.

In fact, I feel like I’m almost going to repeat myself word for word.

Once again we’re seeing traditional approaches towards new media. The Chunga Championship campaign is about a fake character who plays a fake game. He has a fake blog. And a fake Facebook page. And a YouTube channel. All of which will die in three months.

There is no integration of the brand. There is no content creation with consumers. In fact there is no engaging with consumers at all. No influential people or niche communities have even been asked to join their conversation.

But there are banner ads. Lots of banner ads. Oh dear.

John Broome, head of Nestle’s confectionery marketing responded to the $1 million cost and future campaigns saying, “I think we’ll see ourselves going above that… A lot will depend on the success of this particular campaign.”

In my eyes this campaign will not succeed (I wonder what metrics they will be using to measure its success anyway?).

Lets say, just hypothetically, this campaign flops. Nestle aren’t not going to run another social media campaign any time soon. Even though this isn’t really a social media campaign.

Surely there are better ways to spend $1 million?