We love to celebrate great work here at Reputation Online. We’d much rather bring you great examples of online PR, but unfortunately, if we ignored all of the examples of bad blogger outreach – we wouldn’t be bringing you the full picture.

As flagged by Drew Benvie, MD of digital PR agency 33 Digital, Warner Bros. has fallen foul to the scattergun approach so often employed by the lazy or uninformed.

Adam Singer, creator of The Future Buzz blog, was sent a pitch from the entertainment company’s word of mouth marketing team. It started with a standard hello (with no name) and went on to say that that the team had reached out as Singer’s blog; “uniquely stood out as dynamic, informative and highly creative.” The purpose of the email became apparent as he was told that Warner Bros. were: “seeking bloggers that are passionate about entertainment to help engage readers with content that would be interesting to them.”

The pitch ended by saying;“we would like to have you join our WB Word marketing team to let fans know about our latest releases and relevant content/products. As a member of the team, you will be asked to display photos, clips, and stories on your Blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. The best part is you will get paid! Additionally, we may even debut event previews and new content so that fans like you get to enjoy it first.”

After forwarding the email to Techdirt, Mike Masnick pointed out that paying people to talk about the brand doesn’t constitute as word of mouth marketing as such, which is indeed true. Sometimes it’s simply semantics. Many WOM agencies take bloggers to events and giving out free product or a few drinks, but it’s never pitched as ‘paying’ for coverage. It’s more up front; brand scratches bloggers back, and if they like it, the blogger returns the favour. It’s a two-way thing, and the blogger posting a review, photo or piece of news is never a foregone conclusion.

In his analysis, Singer goes on to point out the others aspects of  the pitch that miss the mark, with a lack of personalisation the most basic. “On the landing page they linked me to in the email, (I took that part out, they do not deserve link love) they mention it’s to receive information for a TV show.  Except, blog readers here know I don’t even watch TV.  So why would I possibly care about this?” he said.

This to me is the main point of contention. A brand can (only just) get away with a lack of personalisation if its a super-appropriate pitch (though you could argue that if it’s truly targeted, putting someone’s name into an email – alongside spelling it correctly – is a no-brainer).

The fact that this pitch has been sent to someone who has already said publicly that he doesn’t watch tv, is vocally opposed to paid blogging, and has already blogged about a similar outreach from EMI in a negative light, means that the person sending the pitch in the first place hasn’t done their research.

The story  gets worse, as then someone from the Warner Bros. team then left a comment on the Techdirt story, saying; “The WB WOM team is fully accredited by WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association), which is in regular contact with the FTC regarding disclosure laws. As far as the incident you cite in you story, we were in the process of identifying key influencers on the web who we felt would be relevant to promoting our projects (television and not film as you represent in your story)… We are dismayed that you wouldn’t call first and check your facts before writing this inaccurate story.”

So, instead of putting its hands up and admitting a fault (therefore saving a bit of face and potentially building bridges with Singer, Techdirt and its readers), the team got defensive.

There are many lessons to be learnt from this example. First and foremost, do your research on the bloggers you try to engage with. Don’t try and trade coverage for money in the way Warner Bros. suggests, it rarely goes down well. Most bloggers are proud of their independence and though may be happy to discuss advertorial coverage with a brand, won’t be happy to trade off the publication of images or news in such a direct way. And finally, if you make a mistake, put your hands up and admit it. Chances are, you’ll come out of the situation in a far better light.

Tags: bad practice, warner bros, word of mouth