I think we can safely understand why it took so long for Edelman and his Merry Men to come up with a perfectly lame tepid apology after the PR strategy involving Wal-Mart involved fake blogs, or flogs, as the blogosphere has now come to understand the term.
Its because they were frantically trying to come up with a way to try and spin the consequences of what happened if it was discovered that this wasn’t the first, or only flog they came up with.
It looks like they’ve gone on the offensive and basically outed themselves.
According to MediaPost, a trade magazine for the ad industry, its now known that Edelman is behind PaidCritics.com, and the blog behind Working Familes for Wal-Mart (WFWM).
The Paid Critics blog is devoted to “exposing” links between unions and other vested interests that are “smearing Wal-Mart” through the media. Until yesterday, blog entries on both WFWM and Paid Critics were uncredited. Thursday, bylines were added to blog posts “in response to comments and emails.”
furthermore:
As a result of the new transparency, every entry on the blogs is now credited to one of three contributors: Miranda, Brian or Kate. A click on these single monikers reveals biographies of Edelman employees Miranda Gill, Brian McNeill and Kate Marshall, whose clients include Working Families for Wal-Mart, the sites say.
Sadly, I think the MediaPost article hits the issue on the head: transparency is a double edged sword for Edelman on this one — and it looks like Mr. Edelman hath been foisted on his own patard. hoisted on his own petard (thanks Mat!)
Your peers and fellow media watchers will cry foul if you’re not transparent; however, by divulging and disclosing the true authors of a blog (and being transparent), the blog loses its energy and punch because you’re revealing that the authors are not authentic.
I suppose it gets to why people blog — and why people read blogs in the first place.
Its not just because people like reading about what your cat ate for breakfast this morning (or what your cat’s breath smells like), but because the people behind it are *real*. Blogs at their best tear away the thin advertising facade that fools no one, and creates a real connection between the author and his or her audience.
How “real” is a blog that is created, maintained, and written by a PR firm?
It also begs the question — how COULD have Edelman handled this if it had a chance to start from the beginning? How *can* you create a transparent and authentic communication piece that promotes the positive aspects of your client when your client has so many controversial (and some have construed as “evil”) aspects to its modus operandi?
No question its hard — and we still don’t have a satisfactory answer for Edelman on this yet. The *easy* way was to create fake blog, and astroturf your way to try and alter popular opinion by controlling the conversation. The hard and real way that has often been championed by Edelman … where’s that?
It further begs the question … HAS Edelman ever walked the walk on blogging?
3 Comments
I’ve been making the rounds from Techmeme following this conversation, and so far you’re the one to hit it completely and utterly smack dead in the face.
Authenticy and being “real” is exactly why I read blogs also. Good post, thanks.
Try one of these badges, it’ll make you feel better. :o
http://www.blogkits.com/bloghonor
Hey Jim,
Thanks for coming by!
Will those badges also take away that greasy soiled up feeling as well? ;)
Cheers
t
No, but they do give you minty fresh breath!
2 Trackbacks
[...] “Blogs” which involve a reverse chronological entry of entries without comments are nothing more than mouthpieces for the author. Corporate blogs which act in this fashion or nothing more than arms of the public relations department; and, all flogging by Edelman aside, traditional public relations is the diametric opposite of what a blog is meant to do. [...]
[...] In spite of having the resources of a world wide PR firm behind him and the biggest of A+ clients underneath his gilded wings, Mr. Edelman made a huge blunder (some would say “disastrous”) in the social media realm that got tons of negative coverage for weeks; it even got covered in the mainstream press and trade journals. At the end of the day, it resulted in a review of Edelman by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and it will probably be the fodder of case studies and textbooks for years to come. [...]