Thomas Biegi's blog

The discussion whether employees should be allowed to blog and to what extent their blogging activities should be guided by corporate communications is ongoing. Employees should be able to blog autonomously without any screening, said the Technorati founder, David Sifry, last Wednesday.

“Never let the PR folks blog," said Darren Barefoot. "Everyone else can." Although catchy, his words contain some truth.

Future branding strategies will not only appeal to the senses of sight and sound, but customers will increasingly experience brands through touch, taste and smell, says the Danish branding expert Martin Lindstrom. What does it mean for global branding strategies, where brand managers want their brands to be global, but consumers from various local cultures smell and taste differently?

“Blogs will change your business,” says Business Week in its current cover story about the blogosphere and gives a couple of reasons why.

Last week General Motor’s vice president for communications in North America, Gary Grates, explained GM’s decision to pull its advertising from the Los Angeles Times on FastLane, GM’s corporate blog -- and explained the purpose of having a corporate blog too.

One day after the death of Pope John Paul II last Saturday, the media generated 34,000 major news stories on the pope, according to The Global Language Monitor.

The preparations for the Second Global PR Blog Week, an online conference about the influence of new media technology on public relations, have started.

Should a PR agent seed a blog with a faked username to promote a client’s product? Should your mom review your memoirs on Amazon without revealing her identity? And should your best friend who praised the latest body lotion conceal that she is a buzz agent?

No, says the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and that's right.

PowerGirls, a MTV reality show about Lizzie Grubman and her girls in a fancy public relations agency in New York, will kick of March 10.

With Martha Stewart beaming from all media covers and the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia shares rising, the case is a public relations success story.

A series on Turner Classic Movies about vintage product placement proves that brand managers -- though they were called differently then -- and Hollywood were working closely together even before Reese’s Pieces candies appeared in E.T. in 1982.

It’s awards season and not only the Oscars proved that awards are a perfect public relations tool to gain some media attention. Jeremy Wright and Darren Barefoot created the Business Blogging Awards to promote their blog consulting company InsideBlogging.com and announced the winners in 20 categories last week.

Fredrik Wackå, a PR consultant from Sweden, who is tracking corporate blogging activities on his blog Corporate Blogging.Info, thinks the Europeans are far behind in terms of blogging. He recently started to compile a list of European Corporate Blogs to see what’s going on in Europe. Not much –- if you take a look at his list.

Just in time with the Academy Awards, the global branding agency Interbrand awarded companies for the best product placement. With seven placements out of 37 films being number one at US box offices, Pepsi won the award for best overall product placement in 2004.

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) found that MBA graduates from top Business Schools miss training in reputation management and offered help to prepare future executives for “real world challenges.”