This post, and the resulting comments, sseem to follow in line with that. But then again, even with the advent of scientists saying that the earth is round, there were still wizards that wanted you to believe that walking towards the horizon meant certain death. There is safety in the status quo, even if it is not even relevant to the attending audience.

Antoine of MMM/Brighthand’s last blog post..Transforming Mindsets from Tools to Lifestyle

Firstly, I want to point out that PR is about more than just generating media coverage. A good PR agency will also help out its client with the marketing strategy; the messaging and presentation of the company/products/services/ and even people; reputation management; agenda setting; crisis management; analyst relations; speaking at events (like CTIA or MWC); winning awards; and a host of other activities. It’s true that for most PR campaigns the ultimate measurement will be the quantity (and quality) of media coverage, but it’s not the be all and end all.

But after that mini-rant, I think that this situation just shows that a number of PR agencies just don’t get it. I think that no-one has responded for two main reasons (which are probably combined in most cases): 1 – they don’t understand the world of bloggers; 2 – they are scared of being open with their clients and are reluctant to recommend paying someone else other than themselves.

Many agencies now make great claims about ‘blog relations’ but can’t always deliver. Dealing with bloggers, for a PR agency, should follow the same rules as dealing with [regular] journalists i.e. to offer them something that they want that will help you gain coverage for your client. Simple really. The difference is that bloggers want different things. As you have pointed out Ewan, that is often just to keep afloat and to stay in business. So getting a paid interview, or committing to advertising is always going to help out.

For many agencies however, they want to make PR a black art. They want the client to pay money and by magic results and coverage appears. Too many agencies cannot be open with clients because they are scared of doing so. The best client-agency relationship is always going to be one that is a partnership and is based on openness. So the PR agency should be able to explain your request to the client and leave it with them. Instead, I suspect that they all wanted to create interviews at CTIA ‘by magic’ for their client and were too scared to ask for extra budget.

I think what you have done here is highlight the inadequacies of the agencies that you have spoken to about the issue of payment. You have also highlighted an important issue that happens in the mainstream media too – that is advertisers get more attention from the editorial team. Of course they do it’s human nature and it is these revenues that help pay the mortgage.

If PR agencies stopped being so scared and a bit more open maybe things would improve for everyone.

This we know. But, here’s the problem for excellent bloggers, how do they dedicate their days to a service that doesn’t generate revenues? And, if you spend a quarter of your time on this (because the 9-5pm existence to make money needs priority) will it be spontaneous, instant and as insightful as it is now? Would it lose viewers?

Ewan, you and others are in a hard place. I applaud you for stepping up and talking to us about it and keeping that fantastic transparency in your blog that keeps us all coming back for more…

Let’s talk about the bad first before talking about the good.

First of all companies who makes products worth talking about will get free publicity regardless of how little they spend on public relations. Companies should spend their money not paying bloggers like you or me or Zach or Ricky or Adonis for coverage, but instead on film crews and camcorders and professional editors to throw tons of rich multimedia out there for everyone to consume instead of the typical press release and handful of press shots we’ve been so used to since … well since forever.

On the other side of the token:

Conferences are not the venue to launch products anymore. I’m firmly convinced of this after going to so many of them. Conferences are like high school reunions where all the hacks, cranks and PR people get together to get boozed up and talk about how much has happened since the last conference. It’s a vicious cycle and we’re not going to escape it because it is too much fun. If companies start paying for coverage to increase their signal in relation to all the other noise at a conference then good for them, but in the long term that is not a strategy worth pursing, that is paying people to talk about you.

Your PR experiment failed because you stumped the marketing people. They think you need them and their content to get hits to your website, when in reality without people like you talking about them then there wouldn’t be funding to create a product to talk about, period.

Press, blogging, journalism, I’m not the guru of the current social media revolution that is going on, but I can say this, between friends, what we tell each other and talk about both online and off is worth one thousand times more than any press release from any of the big name companies out there.

Take it as you will.

Stefan Constantinescu’s last blog post..UIQ 3.3 announced

Adonis’s last blog post..N95 V21.0.016 Firmware Available via NUS

I applaud you for being up front about it, (especially given the stick you from some of your readers got for wanting to charge for your time).

Make a note of this post folks; in the months ahead the relevance of this subject will only increase.

Transparency at its best.

Good work Ewan. Bloody good work.

Ricky’s last blog post..Nokia Working With MicroCenter For Retail Space

Very much looking forward to your coverage next week. Incredibly jealous of both you and Whatley!

Enjoy yourself, and maybe swing by the Nokia stand with your busted E90! Now that’s a video interview I would like to see…

Vlad’s last blog post..The black Nokia N82 has been officially announced. And it really is a beauty

I don’t really do newspapers/magazines anymore or at least not in the way I used to – blogs like this have replaced all of that. Blogs are more direct and more personal and I think this is the future of publishing. It is for me anyway and I suspect a lot of other people feel the same.

More importantly, a recommendation from a blog means something. As an example I tried Spinvox directly as a result of a post on this site and have been a loyal customer ever since (it is a lifesaver). Another example – I was sitting on the fence as far as the iphone was concerned until I read a review here. I went with 3uk’s xseries for the same reason and never regretted it. If you started recommending rubbish for the sake of a sponsor I think it would be quite transparent and the trust would break down. This is the unwritten rule of blogging. But I have never even come close to feeling this is an issue. I may not always follow a recommendation but I really dig the fact that there is someone out there who knows about these things, can test out new products/services and deliver an opinion in a way that I can trust and rely upon and provide some entertainment along the way. Long may it continue.

Anyway good luck and keep up the good work. I hope it all works out.