Make the Noise

This morning I started reading a book that my boss gave me last week called “Radically Transparent” by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss. The foreword was written by Robert Scoble, and it piqued by curiosity. Scoble attempts to debunk Public Relations and any type of communications strategy by citing his corporate experience with Microsoft and proclaiming the absolute importance of transparency at the micro level. He depicts Apples as a type of Public Relations Nazi, forbidding the entry level employees to even mention they work for Apple on a social media platform, and touts Dell as a demigod for embracing the utter and complete openness of all workers. But a question that keeps coming up in my mind, especially between these two specific product companies is: ‘Does it matter to the masses?.’

Apple is very strict on its messaging, it does this to ensure that when a product is being developed the noise level doesn’t burn out by the time the product comes into the market. Would the iPhone have achieved such success if Apple wasn’t able to stop the person who happened to work on designing the packaging from blogging about specific specs before the launch? Probably not. While the product is cool, if a year before launch, details on this super-secret product had been spewed out to the world without any type of filtering, it would have been torn apart, digested, and spit back out by the time it reached stores. Public Relations and marketing in general is all about the timing. And especially in technology, it’s all about the type. If a product release can be controlled, the “cool” factor can be fed and fostered, instead of the flaws taking center stage.

Scoble claims that Dell is the leader in transparency for their industry because they are accepting of feedback and allow employees to air publicly their latest discoveries, therefore creating evangelists online for their products. He does mention the downfalls of total transparency, but minimalized their true impacts. But who, in this war for internet evangelists, is winning? Last I checked, there weren’t millions of sites of Dell Fans, nor stories about Dell fanatics getting on prime-time TV because of their love for the product. The lack of micro-transparency on Apple’s part doesn’t mean that they aren’t listening to their users, it means that they are able to create market share first with a planned strategy and then listen.

In the end, does micro-transparency matter to the masses? I don’t think so. I think honesty matters, and to get the best picture of the entire process and be transparent as a company doesn’t mean that the guys working on one piece of the big pie can provide the best picture for the world, nor garner the biggest support / evangelists for the company. As you can see by the photo, it’s not a Dell store that people were camping out in front of..

(Photo by: richardmasoner WikiMedia Commons)

A very well-respected blogger/writer just covered the Bombay Sapphire project we have been working on this spring.

New blog: The Spirit Of Exploration

As an ex-public relations executive, I’m always looking into how PR companies these days are trying to tap into our blogosphere in a way that is productive not only for them, but for their intellectual audience as well. Whatever I’ve seen so far has not really been worth it, with the fake Walmart blog about an American couple traveling around the country and visiting every Walmart, taking the cake for blunder value.

However, today I came across brand Bombay Sapphire’s (gin) new blog initiative called “The Spirit of Exploration”, and was quite impressed with what I saw. They’ve managed to get a large group of good travel bloggers to blog about what to them is the meaning of “the spirit of exploration”, along with any other adventurous travel/living abroad stories.

The blog makes a good read precisely because it’s been written on by a wide collection of well-selected travel-bloggers, many of whose blogs are worth checking out. I wonder what inspired them to share such great stories on the blog of an alcohol brand; definitely a successful PR tactic, we’ll have to see how long they maintain it post launch phase.

In case you’re a blogger and would like to share your definition of “the spirit of exploration”, the blog is also running a contest on the same where you can win a trip to…urrr..I’m not sure where. Full details here.

Posted by Abha Malpani | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was having a discussion with a few of my friends of mine earlier today about the importance of transparency in social media and how full disclosure plays an important role. But what does that mean?  In an age where no major corporation ever says anything unless it has been filtered through PR, legal and about ten other departments, is it possible to have full-disclosure on a corporate blog, and does it really provide the open dialog that is crucially needed? Or would egos get in the way, and self-interest take center stage over the corporation?

Many CEO’s rarely have the time to write every single piece of material that will be presented to the world.  Speeches are drafted daily for them.  How is a blog post any different than a speech that has been washed through the cycles that are usually accepted as standard practice?  How is a blog, a written speech of sorts,  not supposed to have these facets of protection built in?  Is it truly dishonest to have a PR firm write a corporate blog?  Can corporations afford to be nakedly honest without any safeguards built in?  Haven’t we seen this be a problem in the past? 

If we are going with full disclosure on everything, shouldn’t every single speech given have a notation somewhere that it was written, edited, tweaked and approved by the laundry list of individuals?  Isn’t a blog nothing more than an expression of the same corporate identity that PR firms represent on a daily basis?

To disclose, or not to disclose, that is the question… whether tis nobler in the mind… ok I’ll stop with the Hamlet speech… I wonder, though, how many people helped Shakespeare craft it? 

I love Twitter. It’s a brilliant tool to communicate in a simple and precise way with a gathering of individuals from all walks of life. However, it is merely a tool in an armory of other social media and traditional PR weapons, it does not solve all problems nor can it single-handedly reach mass scale outreach. Twitter will never replace the phone, nor will it replace the need to have professionals working to get the word out to properly promote your product. Twitter is a tool for public relations:

Twitter is best when it’s used as part of a group of tools (i.e. email, phone calls, press releases, etc.) – it is not the cure for all public relations needs.

Aw, well don’t we feel loved? ValleyWag just wrote about the Bombay Sapphire Spirit of Exploration Community Blog that my team has been working on for the past three months.

We feel so special… Thanks Owen..

Bombay Sapphire discover spirit of exploitation

In their endless quest for authenticity, marketers have latched onto bloggers as their new spokespeople. They’re less demanding than celebrities, and far cheaper than copywriters. In this spirit, Bombay Sapphire, a brand of Bacardi Limited, which sold $5 billion worth of booze last year, has recruited bloggers for its Spirit of Exploration website. In exchange for writing paeans about exploration, Bacardi is allowing them to enter a contest, and linking to their blogs. At least Federated Media, the ad network, sold out its bloggers’ credibility in exchange for a large Microsoft advertising buy; Bombay Sapphire’s ad agency has cut out the middleman and persuaded bloggers to whore themselves out for free. Impressive!