I’m pleased and delighted to announce a new feature here at Marketing Begins At Home World Headquarters. Whenever the muse hits me I’ll award the highly contested “Cute Puppy Dog of Confusion” Award to a lucky blogger who confuses the heck out of me.
The first winner is a no brainer.
Tom Foremski is never one to shy away from taking potshots (some deserved, some not) at the PR industry. But at least when he does it, it makes sense and gets us all thinking and responding like the intelligent children we all once were.
This week though Tom’s got me wondering what’s been showing up in his coffee.
It seems Tom has turned his column over to a guest author, one Daniel Bernstein of Bite PR.
The title, “Who Shouldn’t Blog in the PR Industry?” shows Daniel off to a promising start. But it’s pretty much all downhill from there.
Richard Edelman totally spoiled ‘Fun with Dick and Jane’ for me.
Sorry, the original was much better.
Edelman, well-respected president and CEO of Edelman PR Worldwide, wrote a blog post this last Monday recommending a few ways our industry can work towards improving how we’re portrayed in film and television.
Ok.. so this is another in a long list of “how PR people are viewed (like the bottom feeders we are) in the media and by the public at large and how we can improve our image” blog posts / articles / seminars / fill in the blank…
Wash, rinse, repeat.
How about we stop acting like bottom feeders? You know, doing things like…oh, I dunno… things like sucking up to gossip rags?
I’ll rush right through the middle part where Daniel argues that blogging is our saviour, that those of us in the trenches send up a hip horay and an angel gets its wings every time a client starts a blog. If that’s true in the agency world or not, I can’t honestly say. I’m a sole practitioner and I only work with clients who already have blogs or podcasts.
Is it nice when some Fortune 500 company embraces blogging? Yep. But blogging is not the be all and end all, no one ever argued that. It’s just another tool in the PR tool kit. Is blogging a slightly less sleazy way of gettng our messages out? Yep, but only if you already aren’t sleazy. There are plenty of sleazy corporate blogs and they tend to be attached to companies and agencies that already practice sleazy PR.
Now we get to the part where Daniel goes totally off the road and into a ditch for me:
Strumpette’s Amanda Chapel has enthusiastically embraced blogging. She hasn’t, however, enthusiastically embraced many of the PR professionals that maintain personal blogs. She actually goes out of her way to antagonize them.
In some respects, I share her concern. I believe blogging, as the delicate olive branch of PR, must be handled by the absolute best-of-the-best our industry offers. These are the Tim Dysons, the Richard Edelmans and the Andy Larks.
First of all.. dude.. that’s a guy in a dress you’re hitting on. “She” is a fictional character; saying you “share her concern” makes about as much sense as saying you share Miss Piggy’s concern over the treatment of farm animals.
As for the second point, I’ll second Mike Manuel’s “Wha…?” in the comments.
What’s the point? That we should blog or we should defer to the A-listers, including Daniel’s boss? That we should encourage our clients to blog or not? That the original Fun With Dick and Jane with George Segal and Jane Fonda was much better and funnier than the remake? That Richard Edelman spoils movies?
Any minute now I’m expecting Bobby Ewing to walk out of the shower. I need some more coffee. Good day.
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