The news of the poor lad who had a few too many drinks then unwittingly left his upcoming iPhone prototype on a bar stool in Silicon Valley has spread like wildfire across both social and traditional media channels over the last day. The hoopla has of course caused a majority of the current event chats around the office to center around the topic. Once the debate over whether the device is the real deal (which it seems to be given the information that has spread) it quickly turns from technical to promotional: did Apple stage this stunt to intentionally “leak” the product?

Although I’m never surprised by the PR prowess of Apple, I find it quite hard to believe that they would drop a bomb like this so far in advance of the traditional iPhone update launch in June. If we were a few weeks out, it might make sense to get the PR machine rolling with a “leak”, but even then sheerly not of this magnitude. Apple is a master at throttling information to build an image exactly the way they want to: in a controlled manner. This latest seems to be anything but controlled.

So I say to those who see this as Apple’s latest stab at PR brilliance, not even the most controlling organizations are always in control. Which in an of itself, could be PR brilliance.

Exciting times as another happy client gets acquired! Congratulation to the Teracent team and to our staff at blast! PR for helping make this possible!

Official Google Blog

Travelocity Offers Hope in Evolution of Display Advertising

Targeted Audience and Real-Time Campaign Updates Put Brand’s Efficiency Ahead of the Industry Curve

I don’t know about you, but I love Dave Grohl and LOVE Josh Homme. I could not be any more stoked about their new band trio Them Crooked Vultures with John Paul Jones. Josh Homme is probably the only person I would ever cry all over if I were lucky enough to meet him. Dave Grohl is arguably one of the most talented people in the music industry today – I was floored when I learned he recorded nearly the entire Foo Fighters’ debut album on his own. And John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin… enough said.

Little girl excitement aside, I am intrigued lately by the methods of promotion Them Crooked Vultures are employing to build buzz around their startup and super secret tour.

Once the rumors were confirmed and the band was public, they fired up their social media/viral WOM campaign and the fan frustration ensued. The guys created accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and now YouTube to help keep fans informed of any updates. It was evident that the band would be performing only a select few venues in the beginning. The confusing part is how long it takes fans to figure out where they would be playing next, even with all the “updates” the band has been posting for the fans.

So far, this has been the process in no particular order:

1. Post a link to a specific set of coordinates and distance on Google Earth. – Gets people guessing.
2. Post another link to set of coordinates, but closer in distance to the target location. –Builds anticipation.
3. Post a link to a YouTube clip of 30 seconds of previously unheard music. – People want MORE!
4. More Google Earth links, but still not a specific location. – Madness ensues.
5. Post a link to a single picture from the concert. – People go crazy for more music clips.
6. Post a tweet linking to their Facebook profile, update their Facebook status with a link to their Twitter page. – People are basically sheep at this point and the band can do whatever they want.

But even with all its ambiguity, the campaign seems to be paying off for the band. They have over 21,000 Facebook fans, nearly 9,500 followers on Twitter and over 297,000 MySpace profile hits. The band’s debut performance was a recent surprise show in Chicago, which of course sold out online after only 3 minutes. They later did a show in Melkweg with box office only tickets, which were sold in groups and required a photo ID to prevent scalping. And the reason for the secret shows and poor quality live fan-made videos? Cameras are prohibited from the shows, meaning the majority of online videos are those posted by the guys themselves. MORE MORE MORE!!! The band is completely in control over what is posted online and what bones are thrown to the fans.

Crystal Archbell, Program Manager

SpotLight Device Tracks Runaway Dogs

Is your dog a hairy Houdini? This new product which tracks runaway mutts might be your best counter defense.

The SpotLight GPS pet locator, which attaches to your dog’s collar, tracks your pup’s whereabouts, alerting you if your escape artist travels beyond a pre-programmed safe zone. The device is made by Positioning Animals Worldwide, Inc. (PAW) in partnership with the American Kennel Club Companion Animal Recovery program (AKC CAR).

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There’s an odd event that I’ve experienced a few times over the last ten years I’ve spent running an agency. Here’s the nutshell:

• You are invited to pitch for a prospect’s business.
• You submit proposal and give pitch.
• They talk to other agencies as well.
• Prospect tells you, “Thanks, but we went with another agency.”
• Months later, you find that prospect never engaged another agency who supposedly won the business.

To me, in some ways this is worse than actually losing out to another agency. Not landing the client is just part of competition. But lying about going with someone else really puzzles me. Would I really care if the program was put on hold or that the prospect’s budget was cut? No. I wouldn’t think any differently of the prospect company.

People sometimes do odd things in business to save face, but I truly don’t understand the motivation here.

An article in iMedia Connection describes how ad agencies are angry about how Zappos handled their RFP process. Apparently, they received over 100 (yes 100) proposals for the lucrative $7 million account, however didn’t give each the review time they deserved.

100 proposals. That’s a lot of reading for anyone and even if you did go through them all with diligence, there’s no way you could accurately remember each one to make an informed decision.

blast! PR was lucky enough to be part of the Zappos RFP process last fall for PR agencies, and although we didn’t get the account (came in a tight second though!), they still were very courteous and appeared to give all participants’ proposals the time they deserved. I think this may have been because of how they handled the RFP process, because I can’t imagine they personally invited 100+ PR agencies to submit a proposal.

We were honored that we did receive that personal invitation from one of the decision makers and had a lot of fun coming up with creative ideas for Zappos. The process was very pleasant and even though we didn’t get account, it was more than worth the effort the team put into it.

Maybe Zappos should have been a little more exclusive in who they opened up the process to for the advertising RFP so less time was wasted. Or maybe agencies should have been more selective in deciding to submit a proposal. But the bottom line is that proposals are part of doing business as an agency - whether you get the gig or not - and complaining isn’t going to do anything but leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

Posted by: Bryan

Surely, everyone has seen the video of the “Cameron Village Blob” by now. I’m not sure where it was first posted, but once it was announced on Gawker’s science fiction blog i09, it was EVERYWHERE. [Editor’s note: Great publicity for the city of Raleigh!]

When I first saw this video, I was convinced that there was NO WAY that this could be real. With all the stuff that is forged online nowadays with PhotoShop and whatnot, I just knew this was a hoax. Until…

On Wednesday, Tyler Dukes at News 14 reported that city officials are claiming that, not only is the video legit, but the “monster” is assumed to be a colony of tubifex worms. WORMS!!! It’s explained that these worms “attach themselves to roots and work into weak points of the piping” and their movements in the video are reactions to the light of the camera. [Another editor’s note: Gross.]

I recently moved down the street from Cameron Village and this video makes me cringe. I have made it a point to never watch it again because I’d rather not have nightmares of a Toilet Monster. But in case you haven’t seen it yet, brace yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELoqZiamr4E

Crystal Archbell, Program Manager

At blast! PR, we work with a lot of start ups. They come to us with excellent ideas designed to directly answer the social media generation’s major pain points and blow the 800-lb gorillas out of the water. They’ve poured everything they have into creating what they see as the “next big thing.” But despite how much we believe in them (and we do) or how great the press coverage is, there still remains the biggest hurdle for 99% of start ups – getting people to change their old habits.

For the “bleeding-edge” generation that we claim to be, we are still creatures of habit. Our email may be riddled with spam, but we’ve given that email address to everyone we know so we’re not going to change it now. Facebook changed its user interface and we hate it, but hey, it’s bookmarked on our browsers and we have all our pictures there so we’ll just deal with it.

What does it take for someone to change their habits? A personal offense by their current social media service (Facebook accidentally deleted your Christmas ’07 album, and you don’t have the back ups)? A forced submission (all your other friends are doing it)? Or is it that there are just so many new social media start ups out there that people don’t even know where to begin to look if they are dissatisfied?

The Internet changes and improves by the second. I recommend not getting yourself stuck in habits at all, and leave yourself open minded enough to experience all the next big things you encounter online. You might just find exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Carla Vicens, Senior PR Specialist

Twitter is undoubtedly the most popular way to exchange and discuss news topics nowadays. Be it politics, pop culture or even severe weather, if something has happened, chances are someone you’re following is going to Tweet about it.

The past week has been coincidentally filled with the heartbreaking celebrity deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. As you can imagine, Twitter buckled under the pressures of the Tweeting frenzy, especially this past Thursday with the death of Farrah Fawcett followed by that of Michael Jackson. Twitter even had to disable its Search feature in order to maintain Tweet functionality.

It really makes you wonder – what would happen if there was a national disaster? What if Twitter had been around on 9/11 for the WTC catastrophe or the London Metro attacks? Would Twitter have survived?

And it’s not only Twitter. Many news sites and celebrity blogs were down following the announcement of Michael Jackson’s death. Are the Web sites we’ve come to depend on to provide us with up-to-the-minute news updates going to be there when we need them most?

For more information on how Twitter handled the event, visit: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/25/its-kill-feature-time-again-at-twitter-to-stay-up/

For more information on how the entire Web was affected, visit: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/25/the-web-collapses-under-the-weight-of-michael-jacksons-death/

Crystal Archbell, Program Manager