Earlier this month, I was a panelist at an American Marketing Association discussion about blogs and branding. It was a good group — attendees who ran the gamut from students to senior corporate marketers, and fellow panelists with far more brain power than I.

One question that came up — the same one that always comes up when you get marcom gatekeepers in a room and start talking about decentralized communications — went something like this: “But how do you control the message? You can talk all day about potential, but what are the risks?”

:::insert sinister music:::

Enter these guys, who seem perfectly happy to tell you that not only are there risks, but they’re damned scary.

Luckily, there are cooler heads about — and they’re not charging over $1,000 for their advice, which is more than the authors of the above-referenced report can say.. Suw over at Corante points out some of the myriad problems with this report, aided by Michael O’Connor Clarke.

My favorite quote:

“Blogs are not a threat to business. Stupidity is a threat to business. Ergo, this report is a threat to business.”

Are there challenges in letting your employees talk online about your company? Yes. Is there some need for basic ground rules? Yes. But the real sign that business blogging is an effective marketing tool may be that the snake-oil salesmen are now trying to profit from it.

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One question we’re increasingly asking clients up front — particularly in the public sector — is a very basic one indeed: How serious are you?

In public involvement, there’s a large continuum between “window-dressing” projects (those designed more to publicize a predetermined program than to gather input) and the intense engagements that can really affect policy and planning. We’ve done both types of projects (although we prefer the latter), but the biggest key to executing without missteps is the same: Figure out the project owner’s level of commitment up front.

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Worthwhile (which, BTW, is one of the great publication names of all time, online or offline) had this interesting item a couple of days back under their “thought for the day” heading. It’s an (ahem) worthwhile issue for communicators to ponder:

Entrepreneur and environmentalist Paul Hawken: “Every age has a critical shortage. In the industrial age, it was money. People in industrial society were willing to give up time for money, and in many areas of the country that is still true. In a postindustrial age, the critical shortages are time and meaning. And people will only give up their time for meaning.

“It follows then, that one of the challenges facing American business is to add meaning to commercial life. That’s difficult for a company to do unless it is able to impart to its employees the meaning of the company. A lot of companies have lore; they have history; they have tradition; they have huge markets; but they have no meaning.

Ask yourself, your clients and/or your employer: What’s your meaning?

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Hard to know whether to file this under Business Development or Marketing — but it’s spectacularly bad practice in any event.

The folks over at Vaughn Whelan & Partners attempted to hijack the agency review under way by Molson Canadian. Their site, established especially for this effort, lays it all out in 22 points. Bottom line: They weren’t invited to the party and thought they should be, so they took their case public.

Ballsy? That’s not the half of it. Airing an unauthorized commercial for your potential client’s product is the ballsy part. And it blew up in the agency’s face.

Read more …

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Glenn Reynolds relates a conversation he had with a journalist who was wondering (as in: he’s writing about it, which is what reporters do when they wonder) if weblogs have elevated the political debate.

The journalist seemed skeptical, and so am I. But that’s because he was asking the wrong question.

Here’s a better one: Do weblogs provide a basis for helping readers form more-authentic opinions than those they could achieve by relying only on legacy media?

And another one: Do they provide a platform for dialogue (rather than just passing along publicity) that the legacy media has never adequately addressed?

And, just so I can keep us talking about marketing and communications: Does the perceived authenticity of the few increasingly trump the dollar-driven publicity of the many in determining public perception?

On those points, the answer isn’t just “yes.” It’s “hell yes.”

Read more …

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Tim Oren takes a macroeconomic look at the challenges legacy media faces these days, and every ad manager, newsroom editor and executive news producer should take a long, hard look. Are you a smart communications pro? Then consider this piece a strategic glimpse into the future and start planning on how you’ll deal with it.

(Surgeon General’s warning: If you’re not up to some economic theory —well written but still not exactly a Dick and Jane Reader — then this link could pose a risk of brain aneurysm.)

Jeff Jarvis did such a fabulous job of summing up that I’ll quote him here:

What’s so fascinating about Tim’s post is that he takes a social issue — news and trust — and measures it through a business perspective. I have always said that in the news business, our only asset is credibility. Tim is now measuring the declining value of that asset in the midst of scandal and in the face of new, trusted competition.

Go read it; this is important stuff if you want to understand where PR and broad-reach marketing will be in a few years.

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