Category: Other

I found a new PR blogger today, Guillaume du Gardier of the French PR agency PR Planet. Unfortunately I don’t speak French, but there’s always Babel Fish…

The cult book The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams is being filmed and the launch of the movie is supported by a blog. I think it is a brilliant idea to use blogs to create a buzz for this movie. The book has cult status and an affectionate fan base, including myself and I guess many bloggers will spread the word about the movie blog even without examining it first. But the blog just doesn’t cut it yet. Why?

• No comments function
• No RSS feed
• No permalinks, although some longer posts have unique URLs
• Only 7 posts since its launch in May
• A photo gallery was launched in June with only 2 photos so far

Content is everything, and this blog doesn’t have any. Is it even a blog? I would say no. The site even made my computer crash so I had to write this post twice.

Link via Micro Persuasion.

In the wake of the events in the USA the last few years, not even the CIA can avoid using PR anymore. The secretive agency has launched a public relations offensive in recent weeks to protect its turf.

“… reporters are more frequently invited to CIA headquarters, in Langley, Va., a short drive from Washington, for news conferences and background interviews with senior agency officials…”

Someone in Greece has been out in the sun too long, because this is simply too dumb. Spectators at the upcoming Olympics in Athens run the risk of being barred from the games if they bring products with the wrong brand into the arena. The “clean venue policy” has been dreamed up by the Greeks and the IOC to protect sponsors from ambush marketing.

“Sweltering sports fans who seek refuge from the soaring temperatures with a soft drink other than one made by Coca-Cola will be told to leave the banned refreshment at the gates or be shut out.”



“Fans will be allowed into the Olympic complex if they are drinking Avra, a Greek mineral water owned by Coca-Cola, which paid $60 million US for the privilege of being one of the main sponsors. Officials are under orders not to let in rival brands’ bottles unless the labels are removed.”



How are consumers/audience supposed to react to this? They are going to be out in the sun, 40º, all day to watch the event of their life time and think it would be somewhat intelligent to bring a can of Pepsi or whatever. But when entering the stadium they are told to throw it away, because Coke says so. I’m sorry, but my soft drink preferences would start to lean slightly away from the word’s #1 brand. This is just not good PR.

Among all the silly ideas, I think this one is my “favourite”:

Staff will also be on the lookout for T-shirts, hats and bags displaying the unwelcome logos of non-sponsors. Stewards have been trained to detect people who may be wearing merchandise from the sponsors’ rivals in the hope of catching the eyes of television audiences. Those arousing suspicion will be required to wear their T-shirts inside out.

I absolutely sympathize with the IOC wanting to protect sponsors who pay proposterous amounts for the exclusive rights to show their brands, and ambush marketing is a method which raises ethical questions.

“Ambush marketing is not clever marketing — it is cheating. And who wants to be a cheat?”

— Michael Payne, IOC Marketing Director

Sponsors make an event like the Olympics possible. Piggybacking of non-sponsoring companies can be, but doesn’t have to be, unethical. But to let sponsors decide what the spectators can eat, drink and wear is a few steps too far.

Footnotes:

The Greeks have used “clean venue policites” previously, for example at the Athens 2003 Regatta (pdf).

“Today the Olympic Games is the only major event in the world to hold such a policy” (pdf).

IOC rule 61 and the enforcement of “clean venue policy” (pdf)

Link via Adrants.

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.

“In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors.”

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.