Hoi Polloi

What to do about Lodon's 'ugly' 2012 Olympic logo

If you've been following the controversy over the 2012 Olympics logo, you'll see a familiar pattern.

Many new logos, and brand names even, seem odd and --as Londoners complain-- say nothing about them.

I have a strong opinion about this one. I think it's not very inspiring. Vibrant, yes. But hey, I don't live in London, and it's easy to be critical when you're not privy to the brief or the marketing context.

But beyond branding issues, it's turning out to be a PR nightmare --with the organizers seeming to not want to listen to the protests.

I like the fact that they are now at least asking people to create and submit a logo design.

They welcome user generated content, with 'downloadable 'templates' backed up by a huge section on the use of and removal of content. Yes, they will moderate comments, they say!

In defense of the edgy (or odd) logo, it appears to be in sync with their objectives:

• "London 2012 will be a Games that make the most of exciting new technology to get people closer to the action.."
• "The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible. It will work with new technology and across traditional and new media networks."

As for what will happen when a logo isn't working in isolation and has more context, this is how ordinary people are adapting it, and sending it off, not to the IOC site, but to Flickr.

And for a hilarious look at what might be taking place at Wolff Olins, the brand consultancy  that came up with the logo, click here.

Marketing or PR: Which wants more control?

Do marketing and PR work in silos? Still? Whatever happened to our love affair with integrated marketing?

Jonah Bloom of Advertising Age has an interesting take on the convergence/divergence thing:

"Ad execs are also becoming more PR-like "listening to influential consumers before crafting messages and are trying to facilitate word-of-mouth programs -- two tactics some PR practitioners see as inherent to their discipline. "

At the same time,

"many companies' PR executives, who once massaged other people's messages and left most content creation to the marketing department, are now building and populating websites, social networks, message boards, blogs, vlogs and podcasts. They're no longer just intermediaries; today they're becoming media and message originators, too."

But --and there a huge but-- both don't share the same view about giving up control, even they have similar communication and marketing goals. Marketers are more likely to give up control than PR folk, he says.

Agree? Or violently disagree?

Googling as ‘due diligence.’ Ever done it?

The folks at Harvard Business Review have a case they want you to crack.

It’s called called "We Googled You" and is right up your street! It involves googling a potential employee as a background check, and coming up with search results that could cost the candidate the job.

I think it’s a good what-if scenario not just from an HR perspective, but about due diligence and reputation systems in the digital age. What we ‘know’ based on search results, may not often be the complete picture. Digital breadcrumbs that people leave behind may be skewed by the algorithm. Would you do business or not with an organization based on its reputation you find online?

We know that the blogosphere sometimes gets it wrong; the posts remain, even after the facts have been disproved.

Back to the case study. A fictitious Mimi Brewster, is googled after the interview, and her dossier turns up with something no candidate would present at an interview. Problem? Or reality in the digital age?

The case study is open to anyone, and closes tomorrow, June 15^th.

Communicators prefer MySpace over other social networks.

Curious about the results of the survey on Social Networks ?

Of the nine social networks, MySpace has the most users. 32.1% consider themselves 'Active Users.'
An equally high number, 25% are 'Occasional Users.'

MyRagan and FaceBook nearly tie for second place --12% and 12.5%, respectively.

But...

More respondents claim to be 'Occasional Users' of LinkedIn (25%) than any other by a large margin.
In the open ended question, two respondents named Plaxo, and Zaadz as networks they use. (Plaxo, incidentally, is not a social network, per se, but a way to manage an online contact database.)

What does this tell us? My interpretation of these results:

1. For sure, we are experiencing social network overload, and people are trying out many services, but eventually settle for one.
2. People seem comfortable being occasional users.
3. All these networks expecting us to make them our home page, or the first thing we check when we are online, are dreaming!
4. Communicators will abandon you if you don't add value, and offer the same old, same old.

Note: This was a survey posted on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend. Poor timing, I admit. But instead of wrapping it up in one week, as I did in previous surveys, I kept it open for two. We had much more respondents this time. Thanks for participating.

Ghost blogging & dictated blogs: Give Blogging CEOs a break!

Not sure if you've been following the debate on Ghost blogging. It's a topic (not as simmering as 'Blogola,' for instance) that's been popping up now and then that's worth discussing if you're in PR, marketing or media relations. Why? Because of our vested interests in transparency (or the lack thereof), and the power of authenticity.

I spotted an interesting comment from the CEO of Reuters, who's been blogging, but not been a celebrated blogger like Sun Microsystem's Jonathan Schwartz, for instance.

Responding to a question if he was actually the person behind the blog, he was pretty candid: Yes, it was him, but on occasion, he phoned in his post and dictated it to his assistant, who transcribed it and posted it.

Sallie Goetsch has a long, well thought-out post on the topic. In a situation where many CEOs speak “bland corporate drivel,” a ghost writer is able to channel those ideas.

Someone who shoots  from the hip and doesn't know what corporate drivel is, is Bob Lutz. GM's CEO. He talks all things automotive, and they don't seem to moderate (read: delete) negative posts. Last week he addressed the sticking point about not posting often enough. To which he apologized, and shot back at his critics who thought he had got bored with blogging. Interestingly, in his defense, visitors to the blog came out in support. There were 95 comments as of today.

People need to give CEO bloggers a break. They do have real jobs, but the fact that they are inviting a conversation, whether they are dictating their posts, or taking some breaks between them, is still admirable. No one seems to get too upset with people who send out press releases with predictable verbiage, made-up quotes, and sentences often pulled off their spec sheets and web site.

At least these guys like Schwartz, Lutz, and Glocer are trying.   

Steve Rubel's Twitter lesson

This kind of thing was bound to happen, when blogs either get it wrong, or an email is fired off too quickly, only to be retracted. With social media, however, it's almost impossible to undo something said.

Steve Rubel posted comment on Twitter that said something not so nice about PC Magazine (that it is just another magazine, and it goes into the trash) but soon apologized to the Editor in chief of PC magazine, when they threatened to boycott Edelman, his employer.

"I learned a valuable lesson. Post too fast without providing context and it can elicit an unintended response.

Perhaps the incident will give Twitter users something to consider, about always using it with the broader audience in mind, even though it's a targeted communications channel.

Rather than condemning the technology, let's make sure we learn the lesson and move on. We all make mistakes, Steve. Your Open Letter was the right thing to do.

Shel Holtz' tutorial on blogs, brands, social media and marketing

Trust Shel Holtz to articulate something that certainly nags people whether they are in marketing, journalism or just wondering about social media.

It's a long post but I highly recommend it, especially if someone in your organization questions why you're trying to implement weird strategies that have been untested, and when everything's changing too fast.

As a frequent listener to For Immediate Release, I have to say these two people --that's Shel and Neville Hobson are the brain reserve of social media, and the amazing thing is how they do it for free, twice a week on their podcast, and with posts like this.

You may wonder why this shameless plug. I am just talking to someone about social media and marketing, and I realized that having gleaned so much from them, I have never quite acknowledged it openly.

For the naysayers who wonder about blogs, Shel's social-media ain't-really-new comment is worth repeating:

When you think about it, paintings on cave walls were the earliest form of blogging, an effort by an individual to say, “Here’s what I did today,” a pre-language journal entry. Blogs simply amplify the content, making it available to a larger audience and enabling what we call a “conversation” to ensue about it.

To hijack a cliche:
Cost of MP3 player: 75 bucks
Time taken to download FIR: Two minutes
Education in social media: Priceless

PR Slice and Clipmarks nifty Firefox add-ons

Those Firefox extensions keep getting more interesting. I've been a huge advocate of the Social Media Press Release from Shift Communications for some time now, and this latest extension for the browser form PRX Builder helps writers, big time. Why, because it reverses the process of the SMPR, by allowing you to strip out the elements of the media release and only get to the parts you want. Meaning, avoid the fluff, or even the parts that you may  want to skip for the story.

The iPhone is here. Yawn!

I suppose this is news, that Apple launched its iPhone, yesterday. For months, or maybe years, this had been predicted. The patent was filed last year. As expected (since the Rokr) it's the iTunes delivery/storage system. About the price of two smart phones, it has low battery life, but oozes with the cool factor.

These days, anything held up by Mr. black turtleneck, against the slightly out-of-focus logo, has instant coolness bestowed upon it by the media.   

Dell's response to Robert Scoble'e response to Apple

On its blog, Direct to Dell, Dell came back fast on the post by Robert Scoble who posed the question as to why Apple gets better treatment, and Dell gets all the bad media karma.

The language (and hopefully the attitude) is largely influenced by the early Scoble

"We entered the blogosphere in part to take on negative issues. Will we make more mistakes along the way? Sure, but we are listening and learning as we go. In fact, the blog is all about those conversations, and it's why I'm recognizing this debate that goes on about and around us."

Scoble's comments are interesting, because Apple does get a pass, and great reviews. In a previous comment about the bad customer service his son got over a Macbook, he called on the heavywright media tech writers such as WSJ's Walt Mossberg to show off Apple for what it really is. (Note: Mossberg, who has been featured in an Apple ad, always acknowledges his Mac preference):

Hey, Walt Mossberg or Steven Levy, why don’t you call up my 12-year-old son and write a column about Apple’s customer service failures instead of giving them tons of praise about the new iPod cell phone that’s gonna come out at MacWorld in a week?

So Dell would have relished this, and reader comments to their post. Speaking of which Scoble was accused of drumming this up for turning his son's experience into a company face off, and doing it for the kind of traffic that Jeff Jarvis got for his Dell hell post. People see conspiracies in what they want to. If I write passionately about a great experience, or a bad one, does that mean I am going off at the deep end? This might turn out to be less of an Apple vs Dell debate and more about the reviewers and bloggers. Interesting.