Marathon blog ends in PR disaster for Mission and Nokia
PR firm Mission has found its social media strategy has run out of steam after an overture to blogger Muireann Carey-Campbell backfired.
Mission approached Campbell to blog about her experiences of running a half marathon on behalf of their client, Nokia, in return for a phone, travel and accommodation costs.
However when none of these promised items materialised, save for a phone on loan, Campbell was left out of pocket, demoralised and angry.
The result was a 1,300 word letter penned to Mission and posted on her blog in an effort to forewarn other bloggers of the perils inherent to proceeding with a business contract without first securing written agreement.
In her letter Campbell paints a poor impression of the PR firm, claiming “I had to constantly contact you guys at Mission to find out what was going on. No one dealing with this project seemed to make an effort to touch base with me regularly. When I did get in touch with you, the standard response was that you were waiting to hear back from Nokia and would get back to me in a few days. You rarely did.”
Mission in turn were said to have blamed Nokia for the mess, allegedly saying they “couldn’t get their act together” and were “impossible to get hold of.”
The letter appears to have partially oiled Mission’s bureaucratic machinery however. Within 20 minutes of emailing it Campbell was called with a grovelling apology and informed that she could keep her phone.
Despite these setbacks Campbell remains glad she took part, having lost a stone in weight over the four month period. Although whether this was down to the strict training regime or the stress of communicating with Mission isn’t made clear.