National Australia Bank Interview

Hi Jim,

Interesting interview. I publish the blog in question here - The AFL Player Spectator.

It's worth pointing out that I'm not a fan of AFL. I don't mind the occasional game, but my blog is devoted to scrutinising the off-field behaviour of players (rapes, bashings, drugs, scandals, miscellaneous criminality).

This makes Ms Glennie-Holmes remarks about "relevance" even more dubious. A cursory look at the content of the blog would reveal that it is not a place for footy fans to hang out and discuss the draw.

Her remarks about the lack of legal or editorial conventions around blogs show up her ignorance of such matters. As a non-participant, her opinion is not worth much. She may as well offer an opinion about the customs in rock climbing or figurine collecting. It's disturbing to imagine that NAB is making decisions about this kind of thing on the basis of her established ignorance. (Also, it's worth noting that in jurisprudence, custom is a recognised source of law in commercial dealings. I'm not sure Ms Glennie-Holmes is aware of that, but if push came to shove, I bet NAB wouldn't just trust her intuition on this - they'd get their lawyers to provide expert advice, I'm sure! Where are their online marketing experts?)

But back to the bigger question of corporate commercial messages on blogs: Her stance of "well, you're inviting comments so we'll post 'em up - if you don't want them you can take it down" sounds good until you realise that it costs me to monitor and remove such messages. It also damages my rankings in search engines and increases my "bounce rate" because it looks like my blog is abandoned, infested with malware or maintained by an idiot.

It's analogous to posting bills on poles in the street. Someone has to come and clean that up otherwise the street looks like a seedy "no-go" zone. NAB is pushing some of its marketing costs on to me. That is not fair and not good business.

I think as businesses seek to engage the blogosphere, it's natural that there will be a few bumps along the way. They will seek the easiest, cheapest and laziest path then react to push-back, like we've seen. This will go round and round until we have something mature and stable and mutually beneficial.

As part of this process, I think bloggers should put a bit of effort into thinking how this could work rather than just ranting and threatening boycotts and the like.

So in this case, if I were consulting to NAB, I would suggest the following:

1) Don't deal with anti-footballer blogs. It's more likely to get a hostile reaction, and it's bad for branding.

2) Identify a leading commercially-flavoured place (such as BigFooty) and contact their admins.

3) Negotiate a sponsorship arrangement, perhaps akin to an "advertorial". This would let the publisher help get the tone right and ensure the message reaches the readership in a way that won't piss them off.

I'd suggest that giving away free tickets to readers would be a sufficient incentive for bloggers or forum-owners to work something out. Money wouldn't necessarily change hands and even a time-limited link exchange with the corporate homepage would probably suffice. This might be a little bit more work than spamming - say, three hours instead of three minutes - but the message is far more likely to have the desired effect.

So, thanks again, Jim, for the interview. I'd also be interested to hear what you think NAB should have done in this case!

Hey Greg, I agree with you 100%. The NAB should have approached bloggers who were targetting their demographic and asked if they could do a promotion. Most people love to give away stuff to their readers. The NAB could have worked with you guys to help promote the giveaway rather than wading in and boots and all.

To me the most interesting thing is that the Agency doesn't get it either.

How bizarre! I actually know Felicity (although haven't heard from her for a couple of years) and out of work, she's a pretty cool person. So WTF?!?

I'm starting to think we need a "web sites that suck" or a razzie awards for crappy Australian Web 2.0 PR work.

I don't know if you saw Naprogesic's "A Pampered Life" campaign to the 'Australia's Top 100 Female Bloggers' last week, but they're not making many friends in the blogosphere either:

http://insidescoop.wardrobechannel.com/2008/06/work-for-free-to-sell-our-meds/
http://silkcharm.blogspot.com/2008/06/social-media-campaigns-and-bloggers.html
http://katiechatfield.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/get-it-right-dammit/
http://insidescoop.wardrobechannel.com/2008/06/web-20-ur-doin-it-rong/

Apparently Naprogesic (or rather their online marketing agency, Tick Yes) have built "the first Australian online branded community for women" (according to their press release) but with the name and tactics they've chosen, no female I know will be using it any time soon.

"A Pampered Life" is what my cat has; no woman I know is remotely "pampered". We all work hard. Seriously, even the few trophy wives out there aren't as pampered as they look; they have to look and sound perfect all the time and that's almost as much work than my startup is!

As for imposing an editorial schedule from on high -- well that's how online communities work, no? We talk about what they tell us, when they tell us and are sure to mention Naprogesic and period pain and how wonderful their menstrual calendar planner thing is... right? (No, women don't talk about this stuff much, not even among ourselves.)

Ad inventory online is pretty cheap. They could have covered The Bargain Queen (my site on that list) in Naprogesic branding for a month for only a few thousand dollars if they'd asked. I know many other top female Aussie bloggers would charge about the same -- and I suspect that their "branded community for women" cost much more, for a lot less exposure.

Seriously, do they not understand that when creators sell out, they get _money_ for the privilege?

If there were Web 2.0 PR razzie awards, NAB and Naprogesic would both get a nod from me -- and they both have a serious shot at the "PR campaigns that suck" hall of fame

Jim, good onya for challenging & investigating this rather uninformed online practice.

Sara - re your "we need a "web sites that suck" or a razzie awards for crappy Australian Web 2.0 PR work', my annual PR Disasters list and ongoing monitoring of inept online PR is active in this area. Gerry

Hi again Jim; did Glennie Holmes know/agree that you were recording/gonna vodcast the interview? I bring this up in my further take on this schemozzle of an attempt at online PR:
http://prdisasters.com/bank-pr-person-outed-via-social-media-interview/

You say "I explained she was being interviewed by me," but did you say beforehand that you were videotaping yourself and it was the video that was going on the blog (as opposed to a written transcript)? Has she written to you with her reaction to what was posted?

What concerns me is that you got to make all sorts of unspoken comments through your facial expressions - none of which the interviewee could respond to because she didn't see them. If she agreed to this format beforehand, then I would have to ask what she was thinking. If she did not or she was not informed beforehand, then what were you thinking?

Great Vid-interview. I agree with all of the comments around this issue, its a delicate area and PR agencies in Australia are way behind the 8-ball globally.

My only hope is that marketers learn from this example.

Cheers