Once upon a time, communications directors and marketing managers dreamed of their press release being run in a national broadsheet, and in some cases, the traditional mastheads are still wined and dined, pampered and given exclusives so that a clipping can be pasted into a nice book and presented as a job well done.
But national papers have competition. It is not just their advertising revenue that leaking onto the internet, it is also their readership. Given the choice of having a story published by a traditional media brand or a blog, most sailing communications people would probably still choose the former – but what if that “blog” was the Huffington Post, or Mashable or TechCrunch or Gizmodo?
Consumer brands, particularly those who are exposed to fashion and trends, realise that it is often not the masses that make something cool. Blogging has created thousands of influencers who can in some cases make or break a product.
And so savvy brands are starting to wine and dine and pamper and give exclusives to influential bloggers.
Of course, not all bloggers are equal, and it takes an even more switched-on brand to understand the difference between blogs hosted on WordPress or Blogger or Tumblr or Instagram – and luckily, sailing has a brand that ‘gets it’ as a sponsor.
PUMA have chosen 10 Tumblr and Instagram bloggers to cover the Abu Dhabi stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race. The ‘non-traditional media’ will be flown in and put up for a week.
Unlike the buttoned down, corporate chaperoned version of events constructed by some America’s Cup teams, Puma says the sponsored bloggers will have “free reign” to cover and document what they wish.
Andrew Schmidt, Puma’s manager of digital media projects says:
“The idea is to fly in these prominent bloggers and Instagramers and just have it be known that they’re there because of Puma and because they deserve it. I think it’s a really good model for showcasing events.”
Schmidt says Puma was inspired by Tumblr itself sending groups of bloggers to New York Fashion Week the past two years. Tumblr has long attracted fashion-focused users and, as a sportswear company, Puma’s involvement makes sense. But the Volvo Ocean Race junket also represents a new step to major brand-sponsored blogger coverage of an international sporting match.
Sean Sullivan, a commercial photographer and video producer whose Tumblr blog The Impossible Cool has attracted more than 45,000 followers expects the brand-backed-blogger coverage model to become more common as bloggers continue to gain traction and credibility as public tastemakers
He said:
“Puma is kind of going out on a limb spending a nice amount of money and hoping to get something out of this, but the blogs aren’t going anywhere. They’re only getting bigger and better, so the companies that recognize that are going to be the cool companies in the coming years.”
So who’s on your press list?
