The Shellacking of the Flack

What is going on with the shellacking of The Flack by Beyond the Hype in the PR Week blog competition? The lopsided results point to several problems with this competition that the PR industry, in its slap-happy embrace of anything that creates PR for PR, is not willing to acknowledge.

There is no criteria for this competition. It is not for the most effective, worthwhile, important or insightful blog. You are asked to vote simply on impulse or prejudice.

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PR/Media Week in Review 08-10-2008

Combat PR

I should have known better than to go mano o mano with a Marine. Frank X. Shaw at Glass House, President of Waggener Edstrom and former Marine public affairs officer, creamed PRBlogNews in the first round of PRWeek blog competition last week, 58% - 42%. Late Thursday afternoon we were knotted at 50/50. An hour or so later The Flack IM’d me to gloat about how badly PRBlogNews was being trounced.  What happened?

These online surveys are suspect.  Any 12 year old can game the results and legitimately Wagg Ed, I am sure, has more than enough computers company wide to click the boss to victory. Or, as “TJA” comments, I did myself a disservice by bashing the competition, even in good fun. Considering the results, perhaps he’s right. But then we wouldn’t be having good fun - we would simply be spinning PR for PR and there’s way too much of that.

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Time for change - Vote for PRBlogNews Now

The PRWeek blog competition has been a revealing exercise in the PR business examining itself. As if we needed further proof - we are a stilted profession with no sense of humor and no imagination. Basically, that is why, no matter how hard we try, we are unable to grab a measurable piece of the advertising/marketing budget with this newly packaged “social media” hoohah.   

I am sure that Frank X. Shaw at Glass House (my opposition) is a fine and honorable man. His bio says that he was public affairs officer in the Marines, he heads the Microsoft business, and he is president of a PR firm that has grown into a well-known powerhouse. It’s just that his blog posts are flat out boring and typical of an exec who must protect his turf, watch his back, mind what he says, not rile clients, appease the employees and pretend to be insightful and informative. That’s okay, it’s good for the President to have a blog, but let’s call it for what it is.

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PRWeek Blog Competition is a Joke

PRWeek has announced its Blog Competition and PRBlogNews is one of the lucky 32 in the running. What, you didn’t know there are 32 PR bloggers? There aren’t. The other 31 are imposters, has-beens, hacks and hucksters. By process of elimination, PRBlogNews is not only the best PR blog, it may be the only PR blog. 

In posts this week we will dissect the first head-to-head competitor we face - the Glass House blog by Waggener Edstrom (sounds like a play by Henrik Ibsen) Worldwide President Frank X. Shaw.  Anybody with a middle name of X. should be automatically “X”d out.

For now, here is a snapshot of some of PR blogs in this sorry “competition” (no link love here). 

PR 2.0? We’re already on PR 3.0. Solis should archive his blog and find another gig.

Richard Edelman 6 AM? Richard has 2,400 fawning employees who must read his droll blog or else they don’t survive until 7 AM. Unfair.

Micropersuasion - How did Rubel get on this list? He doesn’t write about PR, wouldn’t know PR if it smacked his Twitter. His blog should be renamed Microconfusion.

Blogservations - How much can we stand Gomes aching about how he doesn’t like to blog? How many Edelman white male bloggers stacking this deck?

Digital Influence Mapping Project - Grandiose title masks Ogilvy big agency psycho social media babble. I don’t know what Bell is talking about … it’s not PR.

more later …