Blog biz
: Ad Age has an uncharacteristically numbnutty story on blogs and marketing in the current issue (not online). After saying that there was a “controversy” with “hackles raised” and a “brouhaha” by Gawker’s sponsor blog for Nike’s Art of Speed — without ever saying who had what problems — it goes on to give marketers a list of Don’ts and Do’s for blogs, starting with this:
DON’T throw money at bloggers. These influencers will not respond to outright, traditional ad placements.
Horsecrap. Look at Blogads. Look at the room filled with bloggers eager to accept advertising at Bloggercon.
How could an advertising magazine suggest that advertisers shouldn’t advertise? It could be because the source of the chart is Edelman Worldwide, which is a PR company. PR guys sometimes don’t get advertising. The other source is Intelliseek and right now, I’m listening to a webinar from those folks right now and they’re arguing that “PR tactics work better than advertising.” I disagree. Advertising is a clear and straightforward relationship — somebody bought this space. PR is and always has been about influencing the influencers and it’s important for bloggers (as it should be for reporters!) to reveal that. I’ve long said that if I ran a newspaper, I’d create a flack-free day to eliminate all PR just for one day to force reporters to go out and talk to real people and real sources. Or if reporters talked to PR guys, they should reveal what comes from such spokesmen and spinners.
Steve Rubel — a PR guy who really gets it — and I talked about a lot of this last week at an enjoyable lunch.
