OPEN

LG woos UK bloggers

Niall Cook, a leading UK PR blogger, and his team at Hill & Knowlton have launched one of the first "blogger relations" campaigns in the UK , to promote a new LG mobile phone.

The team want to the campaign to "connect with online design/style/fashion ‘thinkers’ in the UK" online and let them try out the new phone.

Key to the approach is an open-ness about LG’s motives for engaging in this new kind of PR campaign: "consumer-to-consumer recommendations carry a higher trust factor than virtually all other forms of advertising", according the campaign’s dedicated blog.

While everyone is talking about the potential, power and reach new social media (such as blogs, podcasts and Wikis) has, there are no precedents as yet for PR activity in this area, so it will be interesting to watch the campaign unfold. A similar approach from a Nokia agency in the US scored some good results in the form of positive feedback and "buzz" from bloggers around the world about its N-series phones [see previous post on Open: First green shoots of New PR innovation].

PR R&D

Meanwhile, Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR agency, has put its money where its mouth is when it comes to the social media revolution, crating a new research and development division, called Me2 Revolution.

The global practice will be responsible for developing new models and services around new media. Edelman already employs a number of star bloggers such as Steve Rubel, Guillaume du Gardier and Phil Gomes, and its CEO, Richard Edelman, has his own blog.

It’s life, Jim…

The latest online media phenomenon to grab media and marketing attention is a game called Second Life.

Second Life is one of a growing number of virtual online worlds online which thousands of players can inhabit at once. Second Life alone has 170,000 registered players, the size of a small real-world city.

Others are eyeing the commercial opportunities. Incredibly the currency in Second Life has real value, and some entrepreneurial players have set all manner of businesses from property developers to record labels.

Some brands have already sponsored the creation of virtual islands in the game to promote themselves and you can be sure that brainstorms in digitally literate PR and marketing firms around the world are wondering how they can make the most of this brave new digital world.

The Second Life world has already spawned its own newspapers. How long before there is the first virtual PR agency in Second Life, I wonder? Perhaps Edelman to open an office in the virtual world soon…

iPod ad rumours spread fast

The rumour that Apple will be putting adverts on its iTunes homepage was getting bloggers chatting this week and even speculating that it could lead to ads on your iPod.

The story quickly spread from the US publication Advertising Age across message boards and blogs of marketers and Apple fans across the world the story is yet another reminder that rumours spread like wildfire, especially when they are about brands that arouse people’s emotions like Apple.

Apple declined to comment on the rumours – I wonder how long "no comment" will work as a response to stories like this.