Marketing Blogs
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by Online Editor | Scotlandon Jul 30 |
NAB spamming: maybe it's time to take dance lessons
The bloggers bite back
"I simply ask this: could I walk into a branch of the National Australia Bank and openly promote my business to those in attendance? I’d encourage EVERY Australian blogger who has an account to the National to close it."
Prominent blogger and old media gadfly Duncan Riley had no qualms about encouraging bloggers to boycott the bank after its rather heavy-handed PR strategy. And he wasn't the only blogger that took offence to the NAB's approach.
Local self-proclaimed SEO guru Jim Stewart of StewArt Media decided to follow up on comments made by Cox+Inall that they had no regrets about their initial strategy. Before you watch Jim's interview below, it's worth reading the argument put forward by NAB's media relations spokesperson, Felicity Glennie-Holmes (thanks to Crikey again for the text):
"Blogs are a public forum", said Ms Glennie-Holmes. NAB and Cox+Inall felt this meant commercial interests could feel free to contribute unsolicited and irrelevant commercial material as comments, placing the onus on blog moderators to reject or delete unwanted comments.
"We identified five or six blogs where we felt we'd give it a try," explained Ms Glennie-Holmes. "We chose blogs where we thought the moderators would review and decide whether or not to carry our message…it was up to the blogger to decide whether they would leave the comment there or delete it."
The fact that the message posted to the blogs was "very openly promotional" and not deceptive also justified the bank's conduct, Ms Glennie-Holmes said."
Now have a watch of Jim's interview with NAB - you can find the video below.
If you want to read Jim's post around his video, check out the links at the bottom of this article. What emerges from watching Jim's video is that Cox+Inall and NAB have a very different understanding of the rules of engagement in the blogosphere to incumbent bloggers. It's a case of a gap in understanding leading to unsuccessful communications. But more seriously, it's about a brand misunderstanding the way to approach their customers.
- Article links
additional info, around the time of this incident I interviewed the head of the PR agency responsible and he was very responsive around blogosphere interest in this story:
http://prdisasters.com/bank-pr-agency-will-learn-from-spam-pr-criticism/
For me, the episode shouldve ended then.
Yet having looked at the story from several angles and spoken to a few players, I think the spamming by Cox was poor (they accept that), the NAB PR was unwitting while being outed by Jim S (too trusting by Felicity maybe?) and finally, that Julians branch spam stunt adds nothing to the debate but may work as a profile-booster for Colesy as a maverick blog personality.
Gerry
Gerry, thanks for the awesome tag line of ‘A Maverick Blog Personality’, and thanks for the profile boosting post that you gave me on your personal blog.
http://prdisasters.com/blogger-spams-bank-attempts-to-exhume-nab-pr-disaster/
However suggesting that I add nothing is a little dubious, social media is a hard beast to explain to someone who does not come in contact with it very often. Giving an everyday analogy I think is an important contribution in helping more people to understand the problem with what NAB did.
And maybe I meant the vid execution was a little lame-o; you could have written the analogy out briefly - think most people would prob have got it without the filmed skit. Seriously, too, it is an example of blogger 'self promo' even if you didnt expressly intend it to be so.
Cheers Gerry
I guess with the video I was trying something new. I have never tried to communicate an idea through video.
I think from now on I will just stick to the blog writing stuff….Actually I always make spelling mistakes which makes me look like a LAME-O blogger too, so I think I will just stop writing and keep my ideas to myself.
Gerry, I put the challenge to you, create some entertaining and humourous video content for your next post for Marketing Magazine and then I think your comments of being ‘lame-o’ and not being ‘humorous or entertaining’ will hold much more weight.
Julian Cole: No offence, but I would have preferred free tickets to the footy than your business card.
For example, if NAB were to have posted a helpful advice post under their brand name, would that constitute a commercial message? At the end of the day such a post may convince a reader that NAB is a helpful organisation and that they may in future decide to place business their way.
So whilst I think its good to give these guys a little slap on the wrist, i think it should be followed with some constructive feedback as to how they could better engage with the blogosphere.
http://www.privacy.gov.au/faq/individuals/q1