Should CEOs blog the brand?

One could take 'brand journalism' to its logical conclusion, where everyone –including its employees and even the CEO is communicating. This internal-external communications approach will certainly defy The Cluetrain Manifesto's Thesis # 53 which states that: "There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One in the market."

Here are two examples of the CEO taking on an unmanaged PR role: It’s one thing to complain about how CEO tend to varnish the truth. But it’s a PR person’s nightmare to hear a CEO describe the company he leads as “Formal, middle-class and boring.”

And the company? It's Marks and Spencer! Marks and Sparks' Chief Executive, Stuart Rose, described his company in such terms, and the cryptic statement was buried in a financial news story about how the company would be selling off its financial services arm (M&S Money) to HSBC Holdings.

Then there may be CEOs who, distrusting PR, want to do it themselves. Ross Mayfield is one of them, who commented in his blog that:

“As a CEO, I have grown to distrust outsourcing PR beyond coordination, especially when we can extend our reach by ourselves authentically and the strategy is core…A discussion on transparency needs to be complimented by one on ethics. If both are not addressed, sunshine is the best disinfectant and disintermediation is inevitable."

So what do you think?
1. Should the concept of blogging go this far?
2. What if Sir Richard Branson, and Bill Gates started blogging? (Gates is rumored to be doing it, but it's not public. Except for parodies of it. ) Would you read their posts, rather than their press releases? Post your comments in the space below.

Author: Angelo Fernando | Jul 14, 04 | Permalink | 5 comments
Category: @ Angelo Fernando | Topic 3 Making PR Work

Comments

In a sense, CEOs blog now when they talk to the press without handlers. People like Richard Branson, Michael O'Leary and Herb Kelleher are great at it. If they were to blog, they might want to have someone polishing their syntax. Plus, they would need to consider whether they could accommodate comments or trackback.

To actually blog (rather than ramble with an interviewer) takes more sophistication.

Posted by: Bernie Goldbach at July 14, 2004 06:13 PM

I'm beginning to get the impression that 'to blog' might be the euphemism for un-whetted speech. But I wonder what the 'CEO' of a country can get away with --as does John Howard, (at http://johnhoward.blogspot.com) when he scolds 'fat Australians', and calls Iraq "a totally lame place to visit."

Posted by: Angelo at July 14, 2004 06:24 PM

Angelo - you do realise its a spoof site, I hope

Posted by: Trevor Cook at July 14, 2004 06:26 PM

Yes, indeed. That's why I called it a parody.

Posted by: Angelo at July 14, 2004 06:32 PM

One major thing that has to be figured out about CEO's blogging the brand is the SEC implications. In a public company, what can the CEO say in a public forum like a blog that isn't approved/filtered by lawyers, PR people etc.?

Maybe all they will be able to talk about is the company picnic and their cats. So, you will get at lot of "personality," but no substance (re: previous posts on this topic this week).

Or maybe just a disclaimer: don't take anything seriously here...it could all be reversed tomorrow (or something like that stupid statement we have to put at the bottom of press releases).

Finally, many CEOs I have worked with do what an old client of mine called "marketing the future." A euphemism for "stretching the truth a little out of sheer enthusiasm." How will that play in blogland?

Posted by: Elizabeth Albrycht at July 15, 2004 03:59 AM

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