Wednesday, May 17, 2006

User Generated PR: Priceless

I read with great interest Julie Bosman’s piece in the NY Times, “An Agency's Worst Nightmare: Ads Created by Users” about user driven ads. 

Companies like Converse have solicited user created content to peddle sneakers, and Master Charge has encouraged viewers to submit copy for ads with the Priceless tagline. 

 This made me wonder; users are being enlisted for ad campaigns, can the same be done for PR announcements?

Aside from financial releases and material announcements, where user driven releases are impractical and probably illegal,  the thought of recruiting users to create press releases and podcasts seems fitting for the new media paradigm we all seem to be embracing.

Consider the following – give customers a press release template, a beta product to test and some essential marketing and product information and let them create their own releases and podcasts, and post them on a company website.  It could shake up our world with whole new ways to communicate and offer fresh new angles we may not have considered. 

This experiment in new media is not completely free of “challenges.”  As Ms. Bosman pointed out in her article, one only has to think back to March where Chevrolet enabled users to create ads for their Chevy Tahoe sports utility vehicle and post them on a web site.  Not surprisingly, some enterprising anti-S.U.V. activists made ads that were less than flattering for S.U.V.s in general and Chevrolet in particular.  Front page in the New York Times, but not necessarily the publicity we live for.   

Certainly user generated PR cedes controlling the message, but it does give users with passion a forum to discuss your products. It enhances the user experience and enables customers to engage in a conversation with your company and fellow customers.

I am not sure whether I am ready to embrace this user experiment, but it does make me want to pose a final question to the larger PR community.  What is our role in this brave new PR world?   Controller of the message?  Facilitator?  Or something not yet defined.

As always, let me get back to you.

Posted by Dan Greenfield at 23:59:16 | Permanent Link | Comments (4) |
Comments
1 - Judging by the buzz received by the Sony user generated content, you have conceivably hit on a way to get PR for your PR... However, I am not sure that in your article you are leveraging the medium to its fullest. Giving bloggers a template to write their own 'PR' to post on their blog is not PR, its just a blog entry that would look a whole lot like a press release.

I must caveat this by saying I am a marketer, but do not know all the ins and outs of PR. But, in my mind to really change the game you would have users generate true press releases that would actually be released. Or at the least use user-gen commentary as content to your press releases. You could control this by only releasing content that is favorable. I certainly would see this as more entertaining than the old ...', says company X Product Manager, John Doe.

And that is the kind of release that might get buzz, buzz that would focus attention on not only the release, but the underlying product/service that the release is addressing. (Comment this)

Written by: Seth Roseman at 2006/05/18 - 12:05:22
2 - What would be in it for the public? Writing press releases is a chore. Even PR folks loathe it. It's different from throwing a sentence or two of text over a video clip (Tahoe), or sending around a funny message to your friends (CareerBuilder). There's no payoff.

Why would even a pro blogger want to make a press release for you when they can write whatever they want on their own site and get it out there that way?

Oh, and also, they aren't *consumers* any more.

Seth - I agree with the first part of your statement but not the second. That is, no one would ever participate if they suspected you'd only released favorable statements. And what would be the point when they could post at will on their own blog and have the same chances in Technorati and Sphere?

Maybe the problem is the press release itself and not who's writing it.

Companies do already use "user-gen commentary" in their releases. They quote bloggers and online journalists.

There are some great blogs that are tracking the "user-generated"(a tainted term now) marketing world. Here's one I check in on from time to time:
http://notetaker.typepad.com/cgm/

Also watch http://www.techmeme.com each day to get a head full of this stuff. (Comment this)

Written by: Dave C. at 2006/05/18 - 15:20:33
3 - I don't see press releases as much as case studies. I can see a spin from what Dan is saying from press release to a comment from a user on something in some sort prepared template (using that term loosely) like a podcast of some sort. Look, we already see this on retail sites - like Amazon and Zappos. But the impact would be something more than, "The Columbia Hiking Boots felt true to their size" and be in depth about how one used the shoe to climb Mt. Rainer in Washington State. I can also see this being used by folks like Consumer Reports - but by being a 'hack' the credibility seeps out of the message and the medium. It has to be, in my mind, facilitiated by some sort of third party - which makes the buyers ratings on eBay or the reviews on Amazon so important. (Comment this)

Written by: Jerry Grasso at 2006/05/18 - 16:10:28
4 - Hmm. generally I agree with you, Dave. However, how many bloggers actually do get something out of their blogs?-- other than self expression. The potential benefit is that it would potentially create publicity for the writer's website and/or validate the writer as something of an expert.

However, it would seem as this would be less like PR, and more like a product endorsement/review as Jerry says. (Comment this)

Written by: Seth R at 2006/05/19 - 09:34:11
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