Winner: Hass MS&L and General Motors: GM FastLane Blog: A Global Giant Shows a Deft Touch
There's no question that blogs were on a lot of PR professionals' minds in 2005. While many used their blogs to express frustration at corporations that didn't "get it," Hass MS&L and GM worked together to "get it" very well.
While some corporations were already operating blogs, GM was one of the first Fortune 500 companies to have such a successful one, in a year in which it desperately wanted to woo back customers and reestablish itself as an innovative company.
GM's goals were to attract 1,000 visitors a day, positive media attention, and links from marketing, PR, and car enthusiast blogs.
Bob Lutz, vice chairman, enthusiastically took authorship of the FastLane blog, writing about product design and the corporation's branding heritage. In a year where many corporations were either creating faux blogs written by characters, or weren't allowing readers to comment, GM's decision to be as authentic as possible won it instant fans.
In launching the blog, GM simply contacted six influential bloggers and alerted them to FastLane's existence. From there, the word spread virally throughout the blogging community, and eventually wound up in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, The Financial Times, and others.
BusinessWeek was surprised by the company responsible for FastLane. Its blog commentators Stephen Baker and Heather Green wrote, "It sounds like the joke on a multiple-choice exam. Name a leading company in blog communications: General Motors? That's right. For a company that's slipping in the auto biz, GM is showing a surprisingly nimble touch with blogs."
Even though GM created the blog in its search for innovation, it mined available information to help implementation. The company and its agency read Dan Gillmor's seminal We the Media book, purchased white papers on the medium, and read up on corporate and marketing blogs.
Results blew away expectations. Nearly 1.3 million people visited the blog in its first nine months. More than 5,000 people visit daily, and 90% of the media impressions have been positive.
Even Lutz was thrilled with the results, saying, "We got 10 e-mails today from people who absolutely hate the cars and think you're a total idiot and should be replaced. But if you blog, you're going to get a percentage of those. And it's fine!"
Honorable Mention: Hill & Knowlton and Factiva: Factiva Insight: Reputation Intelligence
Factiva, long a database of mainstream media articles, realized that more and more companies were becoming concerned with what the press and public were saying about them and their products. Building on its impressive database of mainstream media outlets, Factiva released its Reputation Intelligence tool and wanted to communicate to companies and their PR departments that it could provide a filtered lens for those millions of conversations occurring in the media and cyberspace. To do so, it launched the product on August 4, 2005 through outreach to analysts, bloggers, the press, PR professionals, and the public. Coverage made it into 125 publications and blogs, leading to a 20% increase in hits to Factiva.com and a 15% increase in inquiries about Factiva products.
Finalists:
Eastwick Communications
The "eastwiki": The Road To Community
GolinHarris
An Innovative Tool for Innovative Thinking: Golinnovation.com
Factiva, a Dow Jones and Reuters company
Factiva Insight: Reputation Intelligence
Hass MS&L and General Motors
GM Fastlane Blog: A Global Giant Shows a Deft Touch
Weber Shandwick's Intranet
Blogwatcher: Applying PR Wisdom to Blog Monitoring
Sponsor:
Burson-Marsteller congratulates the finalists of the PRWeek Award for Innovation of the Year. Burson-Marsteller is one of the world's largest public relations and public affairs firms with offices in 57 countries. For more than 50 years, we have offered a full range of integrated services. Founder Harold Burson, PRWeek's "Man of the Century," presides over a visionary organization that provides thought leadership in service to our clients and our profession.