Last year, the social media team at Edelman was raked over the coals for its lack of transparency in work for WalMart. This week's news about Marie Digby (paid link at WSJ and you can find plenty of comments with a quick search) has seen a more subdued, and mixed, reaction. Maybe the standards in the music industry are different, but it seems that there should be a little more outrage.
We'll never know if Ms. Digby would have garnered the same fan reaction if her affiliation with a major label was clearly stated on her YouTube pages (and in recent radio and TV appearances). But when the record company issues a press release in August 2007 about signing a new artist who was actually signed 18 months earlier, this campaign clearly breaks both old media and new media standards for clear and open communications.
Announcing "news" that happened 18 months ago is bad practice. Not being transparent on the web is bad practice. The old and new PR worlds have the same rules.
