Two Swedish Eyes on Media and Public Relations
The Guardian has an article about “blog busters“. Blogs have become so powerful that corporates have to pay attention to what is being said about their brand online.
“[Ford] has recently started to use a blogsearching service because, as its executive director of public affairs, Tim Holmes, reveals, the manufacturer realised that no modern brand can afford not to listen to what people are saying about it online.”
Link via PR meets WWW.
Online media have surrendered to speed. I found this interesting disclaimer at the website of CBS, Denver, Colorado.
Speed has become so vital for online media that they want readers to prepare to find flaws and sloppy spelling. Their message is that we are in such a hurry to inform you about the results of this friendly basketball game between Sweden and China that we don’t have time to proof read properly. You readers deal with it.
I don’t think that we need to accept that. Media consumers today already know that time is essential in breaking news and that it sometimes leads to mistakes, but we would at least want to believe that they are trying to deliver a product without glitches. Nick Denton of Gawker et al once said that for blogs “immedeacy is more important than accuracy“. The same is increasingly true for online media.
It is Monday and time for a quick check on what has been written about Sweden during last week. Here are the topics that were among the most frequently covered by international blogs and media (linked posts are just examples):
Pew Internet & American Life Project has performed a phone survey (pdf) which shows that millions of Americans go online to get alternatives to big media about for example the war in Iraq. One quarter of the respondents in the survey searched for news and images online that could not be found in traditional media. But seeing the images that traditional media choose not to publish, leaves surfers with mixed feelings.
“…millions of Internet users want to be able to view the graphic war images and they see the Internet as an alternative source of news and information from traditional media. But many who do venture outside the traditional and familiar standards of the mainstream news organizations to look at the images online end up feeling very uncomfortable.”
33 per cent wished they hadn’t seen the pictures. Sometimes we should be thankful that media serves as a filter. (I just noticed this report was a month old, but it’s still interesting.)
Traditional brands are still on top of Interbrand/Business Week’s list (pdf) of the world’s most valueable brands 2004. Coca-Cola is still #1 and no new brands have entered the top 20. Thirteen of the top 20 brands have increased their brand value.
Finnish Nokia slips down two positions to #8, but is still the highest ranked non-US brand. The highest ranked Swedish brand is IKEA at #40, with a 4% increase in brand value.
Competition in the technology sector troubles some, but creates wealth for others. Both winners and losers are IT brands or affected by the development in new technology. Big winners are Apple, Amazon.com, Yahoo! and Samsung, losers are Kodak, Nintendo, Nokia and AOL. Also glad to see that my former employer Accenture slowly has climbed into the top 50, which is quite good for a brand that was launched only 3 and a half years ago.
The ten most valueable brands 2004 are:
The Knutby murder has resulted in media coverage of gargantuan proportions, as I have written about before. Swedish media has written 7425 articles about the murder to this date, which even surpasses the amount written about Mijajlo Mijailovic, the person who murdered Sweden’s foreign minister Anna Lindh.
Apart from the sheer volume, Swedish media now also gets critized for the way they have covered the story. Jan Guillou, successful writer and former President of Publicistklubben, an association of people in the publishing industry, on Tuesday wrote an article in Dagens Nyheter where he critizes media for possibly influencing the outcome of the trials by taking sides. When media pass their judgement, the pressure is high on courts to go against the public picture and this is a real problem. Guillou urges owners of media to strive for tighter ethical rules, or he predicts politicians will be provoced to limit the freedom of speech.
And this morning I suddenly realize that Guillou was on to something. The last few months, the newspaper placards announcing the news for the Swedish tabloids, and their front pages, have increased their font sizes to the extreme that it is often just one word, like “Gripen” (arrested, about the capture of four fugitives) and “Slutet” (“the end”). This morning as I walked to the office I finally saw what they might have been aiming for. Aftonbladet had just one word on their placard, “Wanted” (yes, wanted, in English) and photos of three other convicts that escaped from prison yesterday. All in the same style as the posters the sheriff put up on the saloon in the western movies. Would be interesting to hear Guillou comment on the fact that there might be a new sheriff in town – media.
