Tell me, so I can tell the world

Today's pat on the back goes to Universal Studios. A representative from the studio was smart enough to contact Chris at Movie Marketing Madness, and give him all the information he needed on how Universal is marketing the upcoming release Miami Vice.

First of all, what impressed me the most is that Universal contacted Chris. Normally bloggers have to bend over backwards to even get companies to give them the CHANCE to contact THEM. Now because one rep at Universal took 30 minutes out of his day, a movie that Universal is banking on being a summer blockbuster, will get primo exposure on the internet's most influential movie marketing blog, and one of the Top 25 Marketing Blogs.

But as it always seems to be in the blogosphere, that's hardly the end of the story.

Now as I type this, Universal's move is being featured on one of the Top 10 Marketing blogs. Chris also writes for AdJab, and if he finds something from his interview with Universal that he can use there, Miami Vice will also get exposure on one of the Top 10 Advertising Blogs.

Many companies simply don't feel that it's worth their time, from a promotional standpoint at least, to talk to bloggers. I get that. This is a space that unless you are interacting within every day, you truly can't comprehend how easily thoughts and ideas spread. And again, based on the actions of certain bloggers complaining about how Dell listened to them, many companies want to understandably distance themselves from bloggers as much as possible.

Again, I get that.

That's why I think it's our responsibility to ourselves, and companies that are smart enough to embrace bloggers, to reward their efforts. I think we need to send a clear message to Universal that their 30 minutes spent talking to Chris was the best promotional move they will make this week. We all need to link to Universal Studios, and tell the story of how they were smart enough to embrace bloggers. A few sour bloggers last week made Dell's new blog the talk of the blogosphere by raking them over the coals for daring to listen to them. In the process they did considerable damage to the progress of getting companies to communicate with bloggers. We can undo much of that damage THIS week by making Universal's move to reach out to Chris and his readers at MMM the story of THIS week.

So that's my call to the Viral Community today. If you have a case of writer's block this week, and you need a post for your blog, just mention how Universal was smart enough to talk to bloggers. If all of the members of just the Viral Community posted about Universal's move to interact with Chris, the studio's actions could be literally brought to tens of thousands of people by day's end. The A-Listers had their fun and sent their message to companies last week, this week it's our turn to let companies know that bloggers DO want to talk to them, and that we WILL reward their efforts.

Here again are the links to Chris's post, to Universal, and to the website for Miami Vice. Use all of them early and often ;)




Pic via Flickr user Datamax