Marketing Magazine Goes Blog With A Twist

Marketing Magazine formally launched a Blog, The Marketing Briefing, this week, but it’s not what you might think. The Blog is an actual case study and ongoing discussion between Pamela Davis, Director of Marketing at the WWF – World Wildlife Fund – and Bill Baker, Vice-President, Business Director at FCB – Foote Cone and Belding – in Toronto. The two will be “openly” discussing the work they are doing to rebrand the WWF.
Here is an overview from the Marketing Magazine news item on this, WWF Canada Rebranding Process Featured On Marketing’s Blog:
“Davis and Baker will, over the next several months, write about the rebranding effort the WWF has recently started. Readers will find out about new WWF campaigns while they’re still at the discussion stage; meet the people inside the WWF who toil on important issues far from the media spotlight; and get a warts-and-all glimpse of the day-to-day work that goes into maintaining an agency-client relationship…Why devote Marketing’s first Blog solely to the WWF and FCB? The relationship between the client and agency-and the new brand that will come of it-will make for a compelling story, one that we will tell in the pages of our magazine, but another that Davis and Baker can tell, from their perspective, within the Blog.”
I have been following the Blog for the past several days and I’m not feeling real sincerity. I could just be jaded by this industry and immediately feel that both sides will definitely be pulling punches, but I do find it difficult to imagine either side will really open up and let loose on a Blog, especially under the Marketing Magazine moniker.
My hopes are that this is not merely a good PR pull for the WWF, FCB or Marketing Magazine. Anyone involved in Blogging knows that it’s easy to tell when something doesn’t read right. As Herb Cohen says: “a nose that can hear is better than two that can smell,” or something like that.
You can check out the Blog here: Marketing Magazine – The Marketing Briefing Blog.