NAB Spamming: A story of a Maverick Blog Personality


BACKGROUND A post by Duncan Riley a few months ago alerted me to NAB leaving commercial unrelated comments on a number of blogs. When questioned their PR agency (Cox and Inhall) defended their position suggesting it is a public space. I thought I would help illustrate what they had just said by going into banks and spamming my blogging message.


For NAB response from spokesperson Felicity Glennie-Holmes check out Jim Stewart video interview.

For the full story over the NAB spamming debacle head too Marketing Magazine indepth post on the issue.

A comment that came up in the MarketingMag Forum by Gerry McCusker caught my attention

‘Julians branch spam stunt adds nothing to the debate but may work as a profile-booster for Colesy as a maverick blog personality’


and here is another quote about the video from his blog

'It’s not very funny, but does say a lot about how one blogger approaches self-promotion.'


I actually respect Gerry cause he has challenged me a number of times (He is not a fan of self promotion through the Top 50 Australian Marketing Blogs either).

You gotta love the complement of ‘Maverick Blog Personality and added nothing’. However I think that Gerry is being a little short sighted in thinking that this is the only benefit.

Trying to explain the blogosphere to people who have never published or commented on a blog is a hard challenge. Being able to give analogies of what it is like is a very important learning tool. If my video has made one company think twice about blog spamming (The Marketing Manager thinks what it would be like if they came to our store and did it) then I think you could not argue that I have added nothing to the debate. At the very least I allowed more people to get involved or engaged in the issue.

However if you were trying to say that I have not added anything constructive to NAB, I have to agree with you.

I am a firm believer in constructive criticism and that is why I have offered Felicity Glennie-Holmes NAB Media Manager a ticket to the upcoming AIMIA Advertising and Marketing through Social Media Event (disclosure: I will be speaking at the Conference). I think that this Panel (Andy Jamieson, Andrew Cordwell and Nick Cummins (my old boss)) will give valuable insight too NAB on how they should get involved in social media in the future.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never said I wasn't a fan of your Top 50 list; just pointed out it's a popularity bullet for blog egotists J.

Re your NAB Video skit, maybe I felt your vid execution was a little lame-o; you could have written the analogy out briefly - think most people would prob have got your point without the filming, which I didnt think was humorous or entertaining. Too obvious for me.
That's all,
Cheers Julian

Julian Cole said...

Hey Gerry, A little too obvious, I think that was the case! Maybe because you know the whole story you found it a little too obvious. However people who are not living and breathing online marketing (99% of the population). Might see this as a great starting point where they want to learn more about the issue. Getting more heads into this debate is an important objective, hearing the same people battle it out is great but we should be trying to show the power to everyone else.

haze said...

Julian,

Kudos for having the cajones to go through with that.

My personal view on the issue is this:

NAB pay to conduct their business at their branches; therefore, it's their turf.

As to the issue of NAB spamming blogs...

I think they have every right to; blogs, generally, are hosted by Google or whoever serves Wordpress, not the blogger themself.

Blogs ARE a public space. Properties of business are not.

However, this doesn't mean spammers don't do more damage to their brand than good. Douchebags.

Anonymous said...

Hi Julian

I got a good laugh out of it -viralled it off to a few friends and colleagues who thought it was pretty good too. I hope that someone Important (capital I) at the NAB got to see it, because I think it was an interesting way to make a good (and obviously heart felt) point.

Matt, I agree that NAB has the 'right' to spam a blog. But I also think it’s crazy-mad-looney to do so without first understanding the blog etiquette it seems to have breached in doing so.

Zac Martin said...

Jules, well done on the video and I think the more stuff you do like this the better it will become.

This is a great well to sell your potion and get your point across to non social medians (I think I just invented the term "social medians"). Sort of like the Chaser boys talking about Politics to people who usually aren't interested.

Julian Cole said...

Hey Matt, thanks for popping by the blog. Although it was only one comment, the fact is that it takes time away from the blogger in order to respond to this. Although it would of taken the blogger 10 seconds to realise this was SPAM and deleted it, what would happen if this type of activity was acceptable and corporates spammed this blog 500 times a day. I definitely think that they have as much right as anyone else to comment however when they are not adding to the conversation it is not on.

Thanks Katie and Zac for the words of encouragement, it has inspired me to get out there and make some more “lame-o vids” (who uses this language!?!?!?!?!)

User said...

@ Matt and Katie

Just because Google hosts the blog, doesn't make it a public space. Perhaps you should ask Google (a company that spends a lot of resources on spam-detection) if they're OK with people spamming their blogs - I guarantee you the answer will be 'no'.

Would it be any different if the blog was hosted on a website paid for by Julian (such as Typepad)?

No, it's Julian's blog and whether he chooses to pay for it or use a free service and no one else has an inherent "right" to post spam in his comments.

Another thought, your email may be hosted by Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo, at no cost to you - does this make it OK for companies to fill up your inbox with spam?

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Anonymous said...

I find it hilarious that in a posting inspired by the rudeness of sticking spam on blogs, an organisation that should know better has spammed you
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