Day: August 25, 2006

Richard Bailey writes in defence of the blog following yet another swipe at the genre from CIPR chief Colin Farrington. I’m all for pragmatism.  I don’t buy the hype, but then I don’t buy the opposite argument either. 

Blogs are here to stay but like any good visitor they’ll stay alongside the original residents – in this case traditional media channels. [Aside: I abhor the MSM moniker]

I thought the comments to the post were quite interesting.  It appears there’s a few people around the blogosphere – no doubt rabid blog enthusiasts – who are dying for Edelman to fail in their new media experiment.  I don’t understand that.

Now don’t get me wrong, Richard Edelman’s recent preponderance for slipping into politics, name dropping or self-pontification isn’t something I support, but I think Edelman should be praised for their willingness to commit real resources into these new media opportunities.

They are one of very few firms that is taking the potential of online communication seriously.  Anyone working in PR and interested in online communication should applaud that – IMHO. [By the way it appears that many of Edelman’s greatest detractors are annonymous – my new policy is that there’s no link love for the annonymous]. Phil Gomes has an interesting look back at his first year at Edelman.

tags: PR, Public Relations, blogs, CIPR

As you are probably aware Trevor Cook and Paull Young in Australia have done some great work kicking off an anti-astroturfing initiative. [Kami Huyse has a new post on it.]

Watching television the other night, something I do less and less these days, I noticed a television ad for Nestle breakfast cereals that included prominent signage for “Brand Power” which seemed to be some third party endorser.  It set off some alarm bells. Now this may be well known to all of you – in fact there’s a lot of links on Technorati about BrandPower – but I’d never seen it before.

A quick visit to their site and you’re hit with the message “Brand Value – Facts and Value”. 

They describe BrandPower thus:

Brand Power is an advertising vehicle used by leading manufacturers to demonstrate the features and benefits of their products. We’re not an independent body – manufacturers pay to use our service. However, all claims made in a Brand Power commercial must be legally
substantiated to ensure that they are true.

Our objective is to avoid gimmicks and hype in the promotion of products. Instead we accurately articulate key reasons a particular product is worthy
of your attention when choosing at your local store.

Indeed. So it seems Brand Power (part of the Buchanan Group) does cheap infomercial type advertising for consumer brands.  It seems that the USP is that the production is cheap and cheerful and works on the premise that consumers are suitably stupid that the term “Brand Power” will make them think that this product is more reputable than you would otherwise.  “Wow that product is being advertised by Brand Power – I must purchase it.” Yep. That’s it.

So is it astroturfing? Nope.  Just crap marketing.

tags: astroturfing, pr, marketing,