PR Squared: Scenes from the Edge

Random scenes from my RSS reader fill me with excitement about how Consumer Generated Media is promising to change the world.

The excitement stems from the sense of anarchy. Have you ever had a bizarre desire to live in a post-nuclear disaster zone, battling brain-eating undead zombies? Sounds like fun, right? That sense of anarchic glee is evident when you see how bloggers (also known as "reg'lar folks") are able to play watchdog on national brands. Check this out. (Hat-tip to John Wagner and Mike Driehorst.)

How can a large brand possibly deal with any & all disgruntled consumers, when every dang one of 'em is armed with camera-phones and free blogging software? I wonder how many blogs will be started-up in 2007, purely due to "disgruntlement?" From now on, anytime a retailer or manufacturer or service provider pisses off a customer, you can bet that a "spite blog" may be the result. In fact, I bet there's a Math Genius out there who could figure out the formula: for every person who gets pissed off by a FORTUNE 1000 company, there's probably an exponentially-scaling chance that a "spite blog" will be created.

The excitement also comes from seeing "the human side" of large brands. Specifically, it's exciting to see big brands' WILLINGNESS to be more human. That's a softer kind of anarchy, but it's evidence of a loss of control that more brands must embrace. Kodak has seen a sympathetic spike for its decade-long bungles thanks to this clever video on YouTube. This is a stellar example of how GREAT CONTENT leads to GREAT RESULTS. Supposedly this video was created for INTERNAL audiences at Kodak, and the excited response led to the YouTube post.

I wonder how much that video might have SUCKED if it had been generated by some marketing flack's desire to "do a viral video?" Hat-tip to Paul Gillin.

Of course, there's a flip-side to all this. I've mused before about the scalability challenge that marketers and PR pros will face in addressing quajillions of empowered consumers. In those previous posts I was wondering about how to do a GOOD JOB. Now I am growing equally concerned about Marketing's ability to simply KEEP UP! We must not only find all these posts, we must not only respond, but we must also respond promptly & well!?

Yikes. Bring on the zombie horde.

Tags: blogs, blogging, spite+blogs, public+relations, pr+2.0, marketing, kohls, kodak, youtube

Comments

Not sure if I like you linking, Todd, to a post where I rushed to judgment and goofed. Ah well. Live and (definitely) learn.

I think it's human nature to complain more than it is to praise. Guess that's why praise is so valued.

Whether you are Kohl's, Wal-Mart or a local Defren-Mart on the corner of Main and 5th, there should be a demand for companies to monitor blogs and boards to respond to any posts that point out bad service, situations, etc. (if warranted).

Monitoring and appropriately responding to social media -- much more so than traditional media or starting a blog -- is the best value we can offer clients/employers.
Mike

Posted by: Mike Driehorst | January 19, 2007 09:13 AM

I think most of the time, it's just a drop in the bucket. There's plenty of people out there complaining because they didn't get their way, but the stories that grow legs are usually those in which the companies actually did screw up. A nice apology, and some action to fix the problem goes a long way into making this problem seem much more manageable.

And, the companies that have been called out aren't necessarily considered to be the best of the best or anything, they're generally companies that make exceptions for service in order to save some money. Maybe the lesson is to not outsource your customer service.

Posted by: Paul McEnany | January 20, 2007 12:24 AM