A false note
Posted by Adriana Cronin-Lukas
Tuesday, August 17, 2004 @ 01:05 PM
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Marketing
B L Ochman has a story about Warner Brothers Records making classic PR mistakes in getting bloggers to help them promote their music. Although the results were generally positive, they did hit a false note, here and there, especially in a campaign to promote the band, Secret Machines. New York Times writer David Gallagher noted that many bloggers found Warner's campaign to be clumsy at best, and sneaky at worst.
BL Ochman disagrees, the strategy was good, only the execution was lacking:
Warner's PR people made the same pitching mistakes PR people make in general: 1) not bothering to read the medium they are pitching; 2) not forming a relationship with writers they pitch; 3) sending the same pitch to everyone; 4) sending material the blogs don't cover (see point 1.).
This kind of PR and marketing strategy does not 'embrace' blogs, whatever that means, it is merely adding blogs to the list of channels that blast the company's message at the consumer. The company is still not engaging, it just adopting (and adapting to) a new medium to be used for the same PR purpose, i.e. managing the message in the media. Old stuff in new disguise. Fair enough, if you want to have your 'message' handled by a proxy.
What we find amazing about the blogosphere is that a message can be spread without major PR effort and careful management of its distribution. So why not have a blog for Secret Machines and engage other bloggers and music fans that way?
Update: Dave Winer on the NYT headline Warner's Tryst With Bloggers Hits Sour Note.
Misleading headline. Warner Brothers Records decided to promote a new band through MP3 bloggers. Most turned them down. Then apparently Warner started an astroturf campaign, got caught, and denied it.
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Like it or not, blogs ARE another medium PR people need to learn to pitch. I have yet to speak to a blogger who doesn't read press releases (albiet not generally those that show up in email pitches) and who isn't up for a good lead on a story even if it does sometimes come from a PR person.
Traditional journalists love to put PR people down, but they count on the good ones as sources and helpers.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of PR types are hack flacks. But the good ones can be worth their weight in gold.
And, hey, there are some pretty dim people (present company excluded!) writing blogs these days. :>)
BL, you are absolutely right. Blogs should be on the list of media that companies need to be aware of in order to 'manage' their message in the media. That is obvious. And you offer very sound advice to clued up PR people about how to do it without putting their foot in it. Credit where credit's due.
My point was that this is not what we consider as embracing the blogging phenomenon, a turn of phrase with high BS quotient. What we would like to see and attempt to 'teach' companies is managing their own message by direct communication with their audience (customers/markets/industry peers etc). I keep saying that if PR is managing your message by proxy (i.e. other media), blog is your own medium.
Note: To confuse matters further I do agree with Doc Searls that blog is not a medium but that is another discussion. :-)
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