Scoble - the biggest thing to happen to advertising since 1984

One thing I forgot to mention before about the podcast interview Nicole did with Hugh. He made some great statements about the impact Scoble's blogging is having on the advertising industry. He suggested that Scoble is the biggest thing to happen to advertising since the 1984 Macintosh commercial. He's changing the advertising industry but they don't know it yet. He also compares Robert's salary (he estimates $100K) with what Microsoft pays its advertising agency (he estimates $100 million) and questions who is providing the most value to Microsoft.

And I agree. I'm constantly being told by people lately that they were meeting with some people from Microsoft and they mentioned Scoble and the 'Softies didn't know who he is. I had this same experience when I visited Redmond in February. And here's what bothers me the most about that. I would hazard a guess that a quarter of all Microsoft's press in the last year has mentioned Scoble. If someone works at Microsoft and hasn't heard of Scoble, it means they don't read Microsoft's press. If you don't read what the press are saying about your company, how can you know what the issues are? How can you go into a customer meeting not being up on the latest news about your company? In the six years I worked at MSFT, there was hardly a day that went by that didn't start with me eating my Weet-Bix sitting in front of the PC, reading the news about MSFT. I wanted to make sure I knew what was going on before my customers and partners started asking me for comment. If you aren't reading the press, you are out of touch. If you are out of touch, how can your products and strategies not be out of touch?

Comments

[Nicole Simon]

Wow. To be at MS and not at least know about Scoble is quite out of touch with reality of that world. I would say okay to the cleaning personel, maybe the accounting guys, but everything near a customer working with operating systems, blogs, video, podcaast ... not knowing who scoble is ...

(the geek dinner which happens at this moment is blogged to the world, 200 people coming because of Hugh and Schoble.)

[CD]

Certainly agree with you Cam.
Now at the recent CeBIT in Sydney I had the pleasure of meeting many MSFT folks in the partner group and none had heard of Scoble!!!

[Rob Irwin]

I think this might be over-egging the pudding. The Cult of Scoble surely exists, but I think M$ would get stacks of press that doesn't mention him. Online, geek-oriented stuff has a good chance of mentioning him, but the mainstream stuff... which is where that as budget is going... nah, he's not cutting through there to be mentioned in one out of four articles. No way, Jose. That's why so many Microsofties have nfi who he is. It's not surprising to me at all.

[Mark Jones]

Hey Cam. I can't resist: thanks for the vote of confidence in the impact of good ol traditional media. ;)
Mark

[Cameron Reilly]

Hey Mark! You still have net access! I thought Fairfax had banned you from going online or something! What happened to your blog dude???

Yeah I'll admit, I used to read the traditional media. And I still do sometimes. Usually when they are writing about TPN though.

BTW - there is only one major newspaper in the country which HASN'T interview us. Want to guess which?

[david]

I've spoken with people at MS's PR agency who have no idea who he is.

[Cameron Reilly]

David, some of them must know who he is. They are reprimanding him often enough!

[Cameron Reilly]

David, some of them must know who he is. They are reprimanding him often enough!

[david]

true... you have a point there!

and if they aren't .. they should be terrified cause he's doing a better job than they are.

[Rob Irwin]

Again, david, in an online sense this is partially true. In a wider sense, no he's not. There's Microsoft coverage in every IT section of every newspaper, every week. There's Microsoft coverage in virtually every IT magazine, every month. None of it (OK, 99.9% of it) ever mentions Scoble. He's big-ish online, but in the broader, mainstream media sense, no way. Not at all.

[Cameron Reilly]

OK ROb, your point is well taken, but a quick search of Google News shows there have been plenty of news articles mentioning Scoble. How did they miss them?

[Rob Irwin]

It's a fair question I think, Cameron. It's only speculation, but are they too time poor? Is it a case of just looking at coverage relevant to them, rather than the company as a whole (and, in doing so, unless Scoble is working on similar stuff, they just never see him?) In the case of product managers and the like, is it a case of being handed news clippings (both print and online) from the PR agency which only relate to that particular person's area? Is this how he gets missed. Quite probable, but impossible to say for sure.

[Cameron Reilly]

Sure, but what do they say when someone asks them about something else happening at the company?

"duhhh sorry I don't know nuthin' bout that"??

Maybe I'm just a control freak, but I never wanted my customers to be telling me what was happening at my company before I knew. But I guess there's the key difference perhaps - I was in front of customers every day. Most people at Microsoft avoid meeting customers like the plague. So if you're only talking to Microsoft people every day, it doesn't really matter.

[Rob Irwin]

Well, if I think back to my journo days... yeah, I would often come across execs at big companies who wouldn't know what other sections were doing. Say it was a big company that made servers, PCs, printers and whatever else. The printer guy would have no idea what news was just breaking in their PC space.