How NOT to build a brand with PR
Let’s follow the thought process that caused this train to miss the station: Microsoft’s PR agency thinks that a great way to build the Vista brand is to give loaded Acer Ferrari laptops to influential tech 
bloggers. The laptops come with Vista pre-installed, and Vista runs great on these super-fast machines. As the agency sees it, the bloggers will embrace the freebie, and will then rave about the coolness of Vista. In so doing they will help sell the Vista brand to the many readers who trust the opinions of this blogger elite.
Simple enough, right? It’s PR 101.
Well, maybe not so simple. A sizable PR backlash ensues, much of it about Microsoft trying to “bribe” the blogosphere rather than let Vista succeed on its merits. This rings a bell in Redmond, and apparently Microsoft now says it wants the gift machines back.
That makes it PR 101, “Full Circle Edition.”
Thomas Hawk takes the story from there. (Alternate link.)
Once you’ve got the story, read on for some notes on the relationship between brands and PR.
Brands and PR rarely mix
Truth is, brands and PR don’t have much in common. Brands are a strategy of value. PR is a strategy of persuasion. The two rarely mix. At times there can be a bit of overlap between the two, but that’s the exception. A solid brand strategy doesn’t need a lot of help from PR. In fact, heavy PR is often a sign that a brand is broken. In this particular case, over-aggressive PR has derailed the Vista brand.
Brand builders rely on the integrity of blogs
The Vista PR backlash underscores the importance of maintaining high levels of weblog integrity in the tech community. This is a vital issue for brands. These days, blogs are an important brand building tool, in large part because people trust blogs to “tell it like it is” without the compromises of paid or sponsored media. This “freedom to be objective” constitutes a key element in the integrity of the blog medium. Brands, which are forms of integrity themselves, naturally grow among the “integrity networks” of blogs. The PR effort to buy influence among leading bloggers threatens to weaken the integrity of the blogosphere, and thereby diminish its value as an organic brand building tool.
Joel Spolsky on PR, credibility and integrity
Joel Spolsky has some wise and well-chosen words on the possible negative impact of PR on credibility and integrity in weblogs. His linked post should be a must read for brand builders. (For those who don’t know about Joel: he used to work at Microsoft, has top-tier cred in the tech industry, is a smart guy, and writes a widely-read, thought-provoking blog. And he also refused one of the laptops offered in the Vista PR effort.)
Other links
See also: Marshall Kirkpatrick, and the discussion on Slashdot.
December 28th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Credibility on the web is my special interest, and it’s profoundly disheartening for me to see the great promise of the blogosphere slowly being undermined by Big PR and bloggers whose egos have clouded their judgment.
What are blogs anyway? They have crappy usability, they mostly look bad, and often the writing is low-rent. Many times you can’t even find out who is behind a blog.
So how the heck did blogs manage to become so influential?
As you and Joel so ably say, it all comes down to integrity or authenticity.
Without that, blogs are impotent.
December 29th, 2006 at 7:51 am
Thanks for the comment. I think Joel S. says it best when he says: “This is the most frustrating thing about the practice of giving bloggers free stuff: it pisses in the well, reducing the credibility of all blogs. I’m upset that people trust me less because of the behavior of other bloggers.”
If we all work to keep blogs as networks of integrity, we’ll be ahead of the game. But, it won’t be easy.
December 29th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
I have been approached by PR types at MIcrosoft (or agencies) a few times – humorous as I’m not known for being a huge fanboy of the company. They struck me as extremely naive – these were associated with their music business (at various stages) and they made it clear they wanted positive reviews – in one case offering an outline of suggested points.
No one else has offered “prizes”, but I regularly get press releases. To first order these guys don’t understand blogs are different from the trade press.
January 1st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Sometimes I think Microsoft is simply brand averse. It’s mystifying, really.