Customer Reviews
New lamps for old - By: G. C. Fry, 03 Mar 2008 
There are some real gems & lots of good, solid, practical insights in this book. And I have to admit after some initial scepticism, this book is the first to provide me with real insight into how the Web, & blogging more specificallly, can be used to aid PR & marketing strategies.
This said, I found Scott less good with the underpinning theory; he has a tendency to make a few too many assumptions & is a bit too loose with the generalisations. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself, as it can make the writing `pacy' & accessible. However, I would certainly take issue with the way he defines marketing. It's a pretty one-eyed view, & to make matters worse its advertising he focuses on in the list he draws up detailing its shortcomings. At the best of times resorting to `man of straw' arguments is dubious rhetoric, & initiallly this made me doubt the book's `authenticity' or thought leadership, as Scott would perhaps calll it.
I would also argue that `interruption advertising' still has its place both of itself & when integrated into Web-based strategies. The creative variations of Cadbury's `Gorilla' advertisement on YouTube offer an intriguing insight to what can be achieved.
The issue I have with Scott's book is, that to begin, he is so concerned to argue the old marketing & PR rules are dead, that he dilutes the message about how the old & the new might be better integrated to deliver more effective communications, at whatever level of access. But by the end of the book, his more measured, thoughtful & practical approach had turned me around.
For me, Scott sums up his book in the following statement. The new publishing model on the Web is about. . . delivering content when & where it is needed and, in the process, branding you or your organization as a leader. When you understand your audience, those people who will become your buyers, you can craft an editorial & content strategy just for them. . . . In order to implement a successful strategy, think like a publisher.
Two final comments: understanding your audience is classic, `old marketing'. Secondly, thinking like a publisher is not exactly easy, but it's what conventional PR attempts to achieve when crafting messages for its audiences. So, let's be careful not throw out the baby with the bath water.
A quick read about how the Internet has changed marketing and PR practices - By: Rolf Dobelli, 21 Jan 2008 David Meerman Scott asserts that the Internet has transformed marketing & public relations forever, & he's undoubtedly got a point; however, his argument is extremely light on facts & figures (the text contains hardly any numbers at alll), & heavy on case studies. Based on Scott's blog, the book is anecdotal, chatty, easy to read & occasionallly repetitive. Scott is an evangelist for using the Web in new ways, & his ideas are useful & practical. getAbstract recommends this book to experienced marketers who are unfamiliar with or skeptical of new media & techniques; younger readers may find it superficial or obvious.
New rules, great book! - By: F. Goulão, 04 Jan 2008 
New Rules of Marketing & Public Relations gives an important overview of a seminal change of marketing trends as well as Public Relations. This is a quite recent book, important fact when studying this area of marketing as the changes are very quick & frequent. The book is well designed in terms of layout & the structure is quite clear, it is full of useful information that drives the reader directly to the subject giving paralllel examples with the respective links referenced. One must know that books focused on internet issues tend to have a rather limited life range because of tendencies explained in the following paragraph.
The ever-changing Internet world is continuously generating new channels of interaction with consumers. These changes affect immediately the market as a virus spreading through cells. Word of mouth in this media is very important as large communities form & become increasingly more influent on marketing trends. These communities move themselves in the so-callled private networks. These private networks differ a lot from the traditional networks (television, newspapers, radio & others). These groups get together following common interests.
Consumers are changing their focus to the communities that use the products in order to find reviews & tests from people that actuallly used the products. The author introduces the book by giving us an important example of how major enterprises are making several mistakes when entering the world of web advertising. These companies are simply transferring what they think of good television advertising ads directly into the on-line channel. The given example is motor companies that try to engage customers by putting eye-catching videos on their websites - this couldn't be more wrong - the company has already captured consumers attention as we are already on the website. The first step should be to inform consumers on details & advantages about the product. If the website doesn't have a strong content within, the communication will not be so productive.
The author refers financial issues when comparing public media & on-line media. Companies are spending tremendous amounts of money on advertising television campaigns on non-targeted consumers. On the other hand, with a smalll amount of investment they can reach consumers directly & select their target in a more effective way. This non-targeted communication on television tends to be quite effective with mega brands - products that are universallly spread tend to work well on the television media. On the other hand: products that are inserted in niches, tend to work more effectively on the on-line media.
This book gives us a pragmatic view of how "old rules of marketing" operate, opposed to how the "new rules" work. If we are talking about smalll organizations that want to deliver interesting content will have their space in Internet. This is a democratic media by design, it is not only reserved for bigger companies. Smalll business will have their opportunity to operate in this reciprocal media as the author defines it: "marketing is not just about one-way broadcast advertising"(p.14).
There is also an importance given to the role of the marketing of building up a buyer persona. Based on gathered data, the marketer should know the exact profile of their target in order to manage specific content that consumers will find interesting. The author sets his attention on content driven marketing - the paradigmatic example given is the effectiveness of specialized articles published to drive buyers to the intended website. Good & helpful content will reach buyers attention. This book does not reach the website structure matter, but an important issue can be posted here related to the buyer persona: the profile selection when the user enters a website. The website has the functionality of automaticallly show the buyer selected content in accordance to users interests.
"Content turns browsers into buyers. It doesn't matter whether you're selling premium wine cabinets or a new music CD, or advocating to stop sonar harm to whales; web content sells any product or service & advocates any philosophy or image."(p.39).
This transcription gives the idea of how direct the discourse is in this book. The subject of the importance of communities is developed with blogs as a scale to estimate the success of a product - this is measured by the number of times this product is referenced in blogs. This is quite important as every word posted in blogs is indexed in search engines & is immediately accessible by web users - this increases the visibility of a brand.
This book also brings up a subject that is quite contemporary: long-tail businesses. This concept is related to the democratization of the market - the example given is music industry. This market is at a turning point converging to e-commerce. Online music stores are assisting the phenomena that music groups that are not related with major labels are also getting known on the market & the sum of selling of this kind of music is greater in comparison of bands of the major labels. This is the symptomatic point that explains the major issue of this book: the multiplication of market niches.
Companies are even more aware of this change in marketing strategy - companies are now interacting with forums, posting opinions & changing members opinions about the product. This policy may not be accepted by certain communities, bearing this issue in mind, companies are creating their own blogs & forums. This may be a subliminal kind of advertising to their products - consumers themselves will be the advertisers of the brand - each of them will publish reviews about their own experience of the product.
The punch line of this book is related to the way in which a company can communicate to its costumers. The new rule is: communicate directly to your costumers. This book can help us to understand the revolution carried out by Internet. Delivers useful instructions of how to manipulate these new instruments that are increasingly more related to participation, connection between communities & about providing useful content.
A Great Resource - By: G. Tomlinson, 17 Oct 2007 This is a fantastic resource for anyone just starting to get to grips with e-pr. Full of ideas of how to make the best use of the internet to drive your public relations campaign.
However, it is very Americanised and, unless it is updated yearly, it is unlikely to keep up with the fast pace of the net.
