May 6, 2006

Post-Mortem

AdAge.com has a good post-mortem on the Lance Dutson case now that the New York ad agency Warren Kremer Paino Advertising has dropped its lawsuit that was intended to intimidate a Maine blogger into silence who had been critical of the agency's work on behalf of the Maine Office of Tourism. The Ad Age piece looks at the case from the perspective of the advertising agency, as you might expect, but this was interesting:

"It had really taken on a life of its own and it had really become more of a distraction to the business at hand, which is to advance the tourism industry in Maine," Tom McCartin, president of WKPA, said about his reasons for dropping the suit. "And above all, as I think any good agency would tell you, we have the interests of our client at heart."

Dutson, who in addition to being a citizen journalist is a freelance Web designer who also does Internet advertising, told Ad Age he feels vindicated.

"I'm a little stunned right now by the swiftness of this whole thing. It's just really the magnitude of the reaction of the media and particularly other bloggers on the Internet and how effective really shining the light of day on the situation was in making it go away," he said.

Ironically thanks to Warren Kremer Paino, Dutson's Maine Web Report may just have emerged as an important new addition to the Maine news landscape. It's certainly going to have more readers now than before. And, because of the interactive nature of blog-based citizen journalism, that means Dutson's going to have more sources than ever before, too.

Dutson is a member of the Media Bloggers Association, which played a critical role in marshaling a blog swarm to call attention to Warren Kremer Paino's intimidation tactics, which lead to mainstream media coverage, a deserved black eye for the ad firm, and the dropping of the lawsuit.

In his own post-mortem, Dutson thanks the bloggers and lawyers who stood with him against Warren Kremer Paino's attempt to silence him through the intimidation of a lawsuit, and also credits the Media Bloggers Association:

Bob Cox, Ron Coleman, and the Media Bloggers Association moves to a perfect 10-0 against this type of corporate bullying, and the world is now even more aware of the force that the blogosphere has become. ... The Media Bloggers Association, and all of the other bloggers who jumped into this fray, should be very proud today. Bob Cox has worked with me day and night to make sure this message was heard, and that it resonated throughout the media world. And it did. This resonance resulted in the vindication of all of us who have put our necks out to push for more accountability , and will serve as a warning to all of the other Tom McCartins and Peter Warrens who have been waiting in the wings, hoping for the precedent to be set that would allow them to launch their own assaults on the critics of government.

Johnson writes:

So a New York advertising agency is suing a Maine blogger who's been critical of the agency's Maine tourism campaign.

This is, of course, ridiculous and hugely embarrassing for the ad agency, Warren Kremer Paino.

If you can't stand public criticism, find a line of work where your efforts aren't on wide public display. Advertising, in most definitions, is not such a field. Stuffing envelopes, for instance, would be.

Blogger Lance Dutson makes some sound points about the agency seeming to fail to understand Internet search dynamics, and he's right that it was a bad idea to put a phone-sex number on draft versions of the ads published on the Internet.

But even if he were criticizing Life cereal's "Mikey likes it" campaign, I would defend to the point of moderate personal discomfort his right to say such things about a public figure. An ad agency taking tax dollars to work on behalf of a governmental entity is certainly a public figure.

Worse than the free-speech issue is the demonstration of how dim-witted the agency is about its own line of work. Sue a blogger for his opinions and the blog world will go after you, as it has. Not understanding this is the definition of ineptitude in the realm of public communication.

The company said it was peeved that the Maine-ad complaints came up high in Google searches for the agency, potentially costing it business. But any client worth working with would look at the ads and decide for itself whether they were any good. Now, however, that same search will let that same client see Warren Kremer Paino Advertising being hamhanded and peabrained in its public relations strategy, and the client will move on.

What Warren Kremer Paino Advertising needs now, more than anything, is to add someone to their management who has expertise in the blogosphere. I suggest this guy.

And,finally, you can access all my past, current and future posts mentioning Dutson by clicking here.