Rick Murray brings Edelman me2revolution and WOMM to Auburn University
Edelman is the world’s largest independent public relations firm and widely regarded as the leader in social media within PR and marketing practices. Murray also serves on the Board of Directors for WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.
The emerging communication channels represented by social media represent an historic period in PR and marketing. Murray leads the Edelman social media practice with a collection of stars like Phil Gomes, Mike Krempasky , Guillaume du Gardier and Steve Rubel.
Auburn students have already collaborated with Phil Gomes on one survey research project and Erin Caldwell works with Mike Krempasky in Washington, D.C. To be able to have our students interact with Murray, a leader of public relations WOM and social media practices, is a privilege for Auburn’s future PR practitioners.
Serving clients like Walmart to Microsoft and Starbucks to General Electric, Edelman has established a hallmark practice with world corporations. Edelman’s integrated marketing and public relations practices with all of these corporations serve as ongoing case studies which offer our students tremendous learning experiences.
In 2006, Edelman received many awards including the PR Week and Holmes Report Large Agency of the Year recognition. (Source)
Edelman also received two other PRWeek awards and two honorable mentions including:
• General Electric and Edelman: GE’s Ecomagination – Corporate Branding Campaign of the Year
• Unilever and Edelman: Dove Campaign for Real Beauty – Consumer Launch Campaign of the Year
• Starbucks Entertainment and Edelman : It’s the Experience – Honorable Mention Corporate Branding Campaign of the Year
• General Electric and Edelman: GE’s Ecomagination – Honorable Mention Campaign of the Year.
We are grateful to Rick Murray for volunteering his time to visit with Auburn’s PR students. I’m looking forward to his presentations and interaction with Auburn PR hopefuls. Our students will also present their social media exercises and discuss future opportunities in social media as a career path in PR. That is an option that actually didn’t exist as few as five years ago. These are exciting times.
For background on Murray’s work in social media, visit these podcasts – Edelman’s Earshot podcast with Phil Gomes and a Roundtable on Word of Mouth at Jack Trout Radio.
I’m so thrilled about Rick’s visit to Auburn! I just hope that the students (and other faculty, as well) realize the significance and take advantage of the opportunity to learn from Rick’s experience and expertise. I really wish I could be there, but I guess you’ll just have to fill me in from afar.
Hey Erin,
Thank you. We wish you could be here, too. Hmm? Maybe Rick will bring you down along with Mike. (very big grin) Well, if not, I’ll let you know how it goes. We’re very excited and happy he’s agreed to visit.
You’re right. The students need to recognize the opportunity and take it to heart.
Take care. Hope all is well up there in D.C. We’re proud of you.
You should ask him wtf is up with the Wal-Mart blog. No offense to Erin or any other Edelman employees working on the account, but what the hell is it other than a propagandic vomiting machine?
Why is Wal-Mart not involved in a dialogue with the critics of Wal-Mart through blogging? Search “Wal-Mart blog,” and “Wal-Mart Watch” comes up. None of the posts has a comment from Wal-Mart.
And what the hell is this? Is this “someone” related, paid, or influenced by Wal-Mart?
He’s a great, high-profile speaker, and this would be an excellent time to explore the blogging efforts of Edelman (if he’ll talk about it).
Hey Owen,
WalMart’s practices are certainly something we will appreciate discussing with Rick Murray. And, I believe we will. The students are aware of many clients Edelman serves and we are all interested in the what, why, how and other aspects of their campaigns. We will be asking questions about their strategies and tactics.
Do I wish that the Walmart Facts blog was an open dialog? Yes. Do I understand some of the reasons why it isn’t? Yes. Do I wish the posts were less scripted in tone and had the full names of the associates? Yes. Do I, again, understand some of the reasons why that isn’t the case? Yes. Still, I don’t know how involved Edelman is in the day to day writing of that site. I’m hardly going to judge them until I get an answer to that question, first.
You know what I do like about Edelman PR and their social media practices, Owen? Of the large agencies, they are one of the most open (if not the most open) about discussing them. I’ve read the blogs of many Edelman practitioners and even emailed them. I think they deliver more than I ever expected to see this early in social media’s practice.
Realizing they are serving the largest corporations in the world, I can accept that not all the proprietary information will be discussed openly. Corporations are still wary. For instance, I don’t know exactly what is said to their clients when Edelman discusses openness and transparency. My guess is that they try and steer them towards that practice. Do I honestly expect Walmart or General Electric, et. al. to write a blog like either of us wants them to write it? No. Not yet, if ever.
Edelman is trying so many new strategies and tactics in this new world. Yes, they have had their share of stumbles. Still, they continue to practice and break new ground. It is still early, Owen. I believe a case can be made that Edelman has taken the practice of social media for these largest corporations further than most could have expected in just a short year or so.
Finally, leaving cultural and regional differences between the west coast and the south behind, I would say that there are ways to ask questions and ways to not ask questions. Sometimes, being a good communicator means not saying anything at all … or, rephrasing it.
Of course I would never pose any questions in an offensive way.
I agree with most of what you said. Though I can put myself into Wal-Mart’s position and understand why the company would not want to have the blog be an open dialogue, in the end I just don’t see the use. Blogging is a dialogue, that’s it. If a company enters and is not reacting and conversating, it’s not participating. I think that the Wal-Mart blog traffic would reflect that. Who wants to visit a blog that solely posts “employee” praise for the company that are quite obviously edited before posting? If it doesn’t provide valuable information to a customer that needs it, what’s the use?
I respect Edelman a great deal. I like the firm’s ability to adopt breaking new technology and provide it as a service to clients. Seemingly, Edelman’s a great firm.
It’s not that I hate Wal-Mart, or it’s blog. But I would be interested greatly in hearing what the motivations behind it, what the goals were and whether it’s working or not. It would be hard to get the truth behind some of these questions, because if a company is not interested in having a conversation with customers, why would it admit that one of it’s tactics was not working?
However, you’re right. Edelman has been great with promoting transparency on the Web. So it will be interesting for you to get to ask some questions of Rick Murray.
I’m not quite sure what your last point was about, but I’ll be the better communicator and leave it alone.
This sounds like a fascinating event. Congrats on making it happen. Will it be recorded and wrestled into a podcast?
Owen-
And what the hell is this? Is this “someone” related, paid, or influenced by Wal-Mart?
You should ask him about me and see what he says. I’m curious.
Har.
Well, this is turning into an interesting thread.
Owen: I appreciate your thoughts and input. We will ask questions about all the points you’ve raised.
My comment at the end, by the way, was merely addressing how your way of asking the questions (like you posed them above) isn’t quite the way we will likely ask them.
Some of my students asked about it. So, I showed them how to put a plugin in a WordPress blog to “polite-ify” the comments. No big deal. It simply offered a unique sidebar conversation for class.
I’m guessing from Someone In USA‘s comment – and your “har” response – that you don’t think we will receive an honest response? I believe we will.
Someone In USA: We will ask Rick about it and see what he says. I will say this, there is a lot of anonymous information in your blog’s posts and comments. That doesn’t exactly scream “trust me” to anyone that may read it. Still, anonymity for whistle-blowers has it’s place and I imagine that may be some of the reason why you and the commenters act as you do.
For everyone else, Someone In USA is using an AOL email account, so there is no way for me to say where they may be posting from in this blog, at least.
everysandwich: I didn’t forget you. I will ask Rick if we may record an interview or some of one of his presentations. I did not ask this in advance, so I kind of feel bad about popping it on him at the last minute. But, I’ll ask. It would make for a good podcast.
Robert:
I never expected anyone to ask a question that way. I certainly wouldn’t. However, stereotyping the western US isn’t exactly polite either.
You will probably get all honest responses from your guest. About “Someone,” I think he’ll simply say he has no idea who it is or why he writes what he does.
Also, he’s not a critic. He’s an advocate. And anonymity mixed with advocacy of a company is always sketchy in the blogosphere, as you know. That’s why my “har” comment.
I definitely don’t think Rick Murray will enter the meeting with the intention of being dishonest, that would be foolish. But it will be interesting to ask him about some of the darker aspects of Wal-Mart and its blogging efforts.
Robert,
Regarding your mention of GE – you might want to check out BloggingNext – a blog written by GE employees to cover NextFest. I think it incorporates a lot the things this group would like to see from companies online.
(disclosure: GE is an Edelman client)
Thanks, Mike. A nice event blog. They are using YouTube and Flickr, too.
For background, has the site been submitted to, or claimed in, sites like Technorati, podcast directories and other sites?
How nice to have 17 authors working on populating the site during the event. Ah, to have that ability for every blog. I guess that’s just one benefit of being GE and having their resources.
Now that the event is over, any other plans for the blog?
Thanks for sharing the site.
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