Advice for PR Firms that Shill on Blogs
Posted on December 19, 2007
Filed Under Marketing 2.0 |
My post on Canadian startup Capazoo received the following comment from a person identifying himself as “Robert Dobilina”:
Capazoo is more real than you think. Folks are already making money from their content.
I had been suspicious of some of the comments left on other blogs discussing Capazoo and Robert smelled funny so I decided to Google “Robert Dobilinia.” No results. Interesting, but not unexpected.
So I took Robert’s IP address and ran a whois at ARIN. To my absolute amazement, the IP address Robert posted from belongs to a company called 5W Public Relations. And astonishingly, Capazoo.com is (currently) listed on the company’s client list.
According to the 5W Public Relations website, some PR industry report states:
5W is prepared to fight for its clients interests every step of the way, whether portraying a company as an industry leader, campaigning to make sure its part of a broader story, or battling to keep a negative story out of the press.
5W is aggressive in a way that clearly resonates with clients looking for a firm staffed with type a-plus personalities, a bs-free approach, and results from day one.
I guess fighting for its clients’ interests, being aggressive and avoiding bullshit entails posting shill comments on blogs.
PR firms typically aren’t cheap and if this is what a startup has one on retainer for, it’s quite sad. The business of PR is often unethical and I’m cool with that. But I believe that if you’re going to do something unethical, you should do it well and therefore here are three pieces of advice for PR firms that want to make sure they engage in unethical behavior more effectively:
- Don’t be so blatant. The shill comments about Capazoo stick out like a baboon’s ass. Be a little less obvious.
- Understand technology. Posting from an IP address publicly tied to your firm is just plain stupid. It eliminates all plausible deniability.
- Don’t shill on The Drama 2.0 Show. I don’t think anybody reads this blog anyway so why fuck up by exposing yourself here?
Perhaps Capazoo’s deadpool entry won’t be as entertaining as I had hoped. Robert: if you’re reading this, please have your firm spend more time writing funny press releases for Capazoo instead of shilling on blogs.
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Whooooaaa ho ho… I read this blog.
beautiful, beautiful!
I always post with my name and where I am from - Capazoo.com (Director of Communications). And agreed, the posting in question is something that surely should have been transparent. There’s no reason why we at Capazoo should hide our passion and adamant support of what we are trying to do.
As for the term ‘deadpool,’ I am not sure why you think it applies to Capazoo.com. The company is in the best shape of its existence at the moment and we are in the process of putting in place the marketing blocks to get our message out there.
As I scan the daily blog entries and comments concerning Capazoo.com, it’s extremely gratifying for us to know that the negative comments pertaining to us, are not about our product! Indeed, the site is well received and improving all the time. Members are feeling a sense of appreciation and value for their content and time spent online, and to us that’s all that matters.
Having National Lampoon in the fold is the beginning of great things over the next few months, and a clear demonstration of a U.S. entertainment institution’s confidence in our site and focus for the future.
The presence of professional athletes on the site is another coup. Having Kenyon Martin, Champ Bailey, Musa Smith and Martin Biron, to name a few …. is another exciting element for our Members.
The member-driven economy is someting that has truly created a community feel on Capazoo. Members are having their videos tipped by other Members and there’s a great sense of valuing and appreciation - making it a much more fruitful and warm environment than some of our competitors.
We hope you give it a chance. If you would like more information about Capazoo, simply message me through http://www.capazoo.com/matthew ….
“The company is in the best shape of its existence at the moment and we are in the process of putting in place the marketing blocks to get our message out there.”
I’m assuming that this includes a full network of PR firms that shill for you?
“As I scan the daily blog entries and comments concerning Capazoo.com, it’s extremely gratifying for us to know that the negative comments pertaining to us, are not about our product!”
There’s little need to even take the product seriously at this point given the circumstances. I love how you’ve glossed over the fact that your PR firm was caught posting shill comments clearly in an effort to make it appear that your company has wide support from real users. This is not a transparency issue; it’s an ethics issue.
Let me ask you this Matthew: do you actually believe what you’re writing?
By the way, I’m still awaiting your response to my comment on the other thread. Please refute my claims.
[…] the company issued a press release offering to help Lindsay Lohan and has apparently retained a PR firm that shills blatantly on blogs makes Capazoo a viable contender for Dumbest Startup of […]
What’s even funnier is the heavy push they are trying to create on http://www.onemodelplace.com - I guess they figure the only way to get this baby to not going into an early demise is to get a bunch of pseudo porn girls to show some skin on the site.
[…] the company issued a press release offering to help Lindsay Lohan and has apparently retained a PR firm that shills blatantly on blogs makes Capazoo a viable contender for Dumbest Startup of […]