Advertising, Blogs And The PR Of It All

Ed Lee over at Blogging Me Blogging You has a hot post called, Ads On Blogs? The posting is based on a banner campaign from the CNW – Canadian News Wire which drives to an online game, The PR Game. CNW is trying to engage communications professionals through online gaming (it’s all the rage).and they’re getting this attention by placing banner ads on some key Public Relations professionals’ Blogs.
Some Bloggers have taken the advertising for the money, some have done it to see how ads perform on their site (research), and some have done it just to do it. All are valid reasons to run the CNW banners. The challenge is that there is still a stigma attached to Bloggers who run advertising.
Back to Ed Lee’s post, Ads On Blogs? I’d like you to run over and take a read, but make sure to view all of the comments as well. The reason I found Lee’s post so fascinating is that he does not hold punches (in this post or his other ones). It’s not like Lee is a high-level, revered PR practitioner (yet – he’s on his way) and he even calls out people who are his senior. I think that Blogging Me Blogging You is powerful because of this. His posts could hurt his career if it rubs someone the wrong way. His posts could offend (or provoke?) others, but Lee sticks true to the ethos of a valuable Blog: speak from the heart, have a human voice and write about how you really feel.
So who cares if a PR Blog is running ads or not? If you’re going to put those big questions out there, regardless of where you are in your industry’s food chain, think about Ed Lee and speak with candor, engage in the conversation and see where it can take you.