Mick’s right, we’d prefer to talk to *you* and whoever else is on the team at your personal addresses.

Your busted email explanation sounds kind of iffy, but I think we’re all keen to give you the benefit of the doubt based on your openness.

Like Laurel, I’m always up for a freebie

More importantly, I’m now interested enough in this campaign to talk about you on my blog (tonight some time) based on your responses here.

Screwing up, admitting it and then really making amends is one of the best way to wow people and ‘live the flow’ and you’re on your way.

Putting your phone number in is also good, if you mean it. Better if you use dixie@publicisdigital.com though otherwise we’re still thinking it’s a catchall, which it might be but you can make me feel better about it.

“Communities, the temperamental mistress. Caring and supporting, but ruthless in a flash.”

We researched the Australian blogosphere, finding 25 bloggers who we believed would be interested in a Fibresure xmas gift pack containing a product sample and a few other goodies.

Using a general email account (to share between a few people), we emailed the bloggers about the gift packs. Unfortunately, the email account was set up incorrectly (which would have appeared pretty odd to the recipients) and we neglected to include any personalization in the message. A couple quick lessons learned (better QA, more personalization) over here!

Thanks for the opportunity to explain ourselves. I hope you can see we are not trying to be subversive or spam anyone as it might have appeared. If anyone has any questions on this, please contract me directly.

Thanks.
Dixie
Producer – Publicis Digital
02 9258 9367
BloggerRelations@publicisdigital.com

“Send the email to me again, as a real person and I’ll send you my details. But if you are a spammer, go away! o.O ”

I’m always up for free stuff.

I was particularly amused that there was no real person behind “Blogger Relations”. No human beings in the conversation. Well except me and that’s debateable. *sighs* Social media can be so lonely

Dang.

Oh, well. I think the play of metamucil giving people the $hits is pretty funny.

But it is a clear display of failure of a PR 1.0 company to get 2.0. It was close, but nope.

They found me on twitter, so an @ message would have been nice.

But the biggest failure is not being human. You can’t connect to another human from Mojo Publicis. You have to do it human to human.

If in doubt, ask one person in the space first. Pay them if you have to, but we’re a nice bunch and will point you in the right direction.

Nice job Nick.

Spelling fail. smap=spam…

Interestingly, you weren’t the “trusted reference”, which in my case was Gavin Heaton (servantofchaos).

I was tempted to note this as another failure of social media and marketing in Australia, but I figured I’d been enough of a curmudgeon this year.

It’s good to see PM are on to fixing this, but even if the campaign had been not spammy, I find it offensive and annoying to be contacted by a brand/agency and not a human within them.

The ‘spam’ part is getting unsolicited email.

The mis-use part is not abiding by the license clearly stated on my site; and not seeking permission to ‘reference’ sell a product based on my endorsement.

Also, the email sent out made it seem like I endorsed the product: and this was done without my permission. The recipients actually thought I had given you their email address: sort of like network selling. A concept I totally abhor.

Finally, there was no human/contact details at your end to call/email/fax … to talk to. ANY company wanting to do “social” stuff needs to realise it is about real humans. Not call centres, blank emails etc. etc.

I class this as fail. Epic Fail.

On the Metamucil side: I own enough for the moment, and would prefer to remain aloof from endorsement.

Nick

Sorry for the mix-up, the email address is fully functioning now. If you are interested, let us know and we will send you an Xmas pack too.

Cheers.
Dixie
Producer — Publicis Digital

I’d be interested to see whats in the gift pack for said ‘fibre products’. Hodge… since you’re ‘particularly influential in the blogosphere’, can you get me one? I could use some metamucil branded beach towels. And some sweet smelling orange coloured soaps for the toilet maybe good?

If you’re in Australia you can report spam to the ACMA — http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310294

I have reported to them in the past and they have addressed my complaints every time.