Burson-Marsteller just released a study that says only 15% of Fortune 500 companies are blogging. That is 74 companies who see an opportunity and are learning to grow with it and 426 companies still trying to control the message.

Hello to heads of companies still reminiscing in advertising during the 1980s–wake up! Your audience doesn’t want to be told what to think, what to do, what to buy. They want stumbleupon it, see how their friends rate it, and engage in open conversations about it.

Responding to questions about the survey, Erin Byrne, Burson chief digital strategist, says that “I think the reason…why it still isn’t higher is that companies are still grappling with how they participate in the conversation when they don’t have control over the message.”

I hear that all the time. My clients often express their fear about blogs because they don’t want to lose control of their message. And I have to ask them, “Do you think these things aren’t already being said?”

That’s right, there’s the brutal honesty…your current customers, your lost customers and your potential customers are still talking about you everyday, every minute…all the time. But you just don’t know what they are saying.

Now that’s scary. The person you want to receive your message is trying to talk to you, but you aren’t listening. You aren’t engaging. You don’t even see them.

The brilliant idea behind blogs is that you can listen to your consumers. You can hear what they are saying, see how they are (not) recommending your product and ask them important questions like, “Why?”

Just imagine what you’ll learn.

Thanks to our new friend Matthew Rowley, we have learned that it is now possible to not only Not Drink the Koolaid — you can now Not EAT the Koolaid as well! Yep, turns out the crazy folks in the South have found a new way to consume the beloved elixir by super-soaking pickles with it.Before you yack, consider this: if the Del Mar Fair can serve one up batter fried and on a stick, then why is a cherry flavored pickle so hideous sounding? This is why I love America — such culinary ingenuity!

FYI check out Matthew’s cool blog called Rowley’s Whiskey Forge. He’s got a wicked cocktail vibe going.

A new search engine was launched yesterday with hype of rivaling Google. Ha.

Ya, you heard it right. Cuil (pronounced “cool”) hopes to rival Google and they’re getting a lot of press for it. They boast an index of 120 billion web pages, supposedly 3-times more than any other search engine. Its claim to innovation is its keyword relevance and analysis-based searching rather than page rank popularity search (such as Google). Cuil’s site states that while page rank popularity is important, it is dominating search results so heavily that what you’re looking for is getting harder to find.

I beg to differ. I wanted to learn a bit more about Cuil so I searched “Cuil” on their site and got this. That’s not what I was looking for.

Ok – it has a benefit. Because Cuil analyzes web pages rather than click throughs, it doesn’t keep any of your past search history. It’s “not our business” they say. Privacy is important, so I appreciate that. But let’s be real, are we ever going to break ourselves of our Google habits? Will “Cuil” ever become a verb? What’s popular is a backbone to our society – we loooove what’s popular. In marketing, we look for trends and if we weren’t lucky enough to have created them, we follow them. We need Google.

Cuil makes it hard to find what I’m looking for, hard to figure out what’s important (and popular) and hard to figure out how to get my clients to the top. So for now, it’s nothing more than a challenge…and a sneaky search tool for things you don’t want people to know about….

BTW – According to their website, Cuil is an old Irish word for “knowledge.” By “old Irish” they meant Gaelic. Just as Mexicans don’t speak Mexican, Irishmen don’t speak Irish. I know, I searched it on Google.

This video says it all. Brilliant.

Recently, one of my friends said to me, “You PR people must get to go to a lot of fabulous parties”

We sure do. We also host some pretty impressive events, such as last week’s grand opening of Point Loma Outfitting. The place was packed with friends, sailing enthusiasts and co-sponsor San Diego Magazine’s “A-List.” While guests sipped on delicious (albeit strong) Caipirinhas from Leblon Rum and dined on Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza, they perused and bought items from Point Loma Outfitting’s large selection of Patagonia and the ultra-exclusive, Italian line, SLAM. In turn, Point Loma Outfitting donated 10% of those sales to the San Diego Coastkeeper organization. With all the support from local sponsors, friends and the sailing community, the evening reflected the true spirit of San Diego culture.

While we at BG always enjoy throwing a great party, this particular event represented a lot more than just the opening of a new San Diego store. It was the beginning of a national brand, one that we have been excited to help Point Loma Outfitting create. It also highlighted the new direction Bailey Gardiner is taking as we continue to expand. Our new creative team is responsible for Point Loma Outfitting’s debut advertising campaign—and that’s only the beginning. If you think what we’ve released so far is entertaining, you should see what’s coming in fall!

We’re looking for an Account Director for our advertising team. The job ad says it well – here it is and pass it on if you know any qualified candidates.

Account Director

We’re looking for someone different.

We’re looking for the person at the meeting or cocktail party that everyone needs to know. Not because you’re a clown, but because you’re interesting. Confident. You have something going on under the surface. People know there’s more to you than the title on your card. But they just don’t know what it is yet.

We want a person that clients–even difficult ones–and co-workers would trust and feel comfortable with. Someone that can respectfully disagree, tell people why, and then lead the way to a better solution.

We’re not interested in egos. And just in case you missed that, we’re not interested in egos.

What we want is a Senior Account Manager that’s ready to step up–to be an Account Director of a young, talented account team. Of course, that person will be required to perform all typical account management duties but with a real emphasis on strategy and new business. You’ll be expected to spend a lot of time working with the Executive Creative Director and the agency partners to help grow our company into a well-respected creative agency.

We’ve changed a lot in the last few months and we have some room to grow. So, if you’re curious about who we are, go to baileygardiner.com. It’s a temporary website because we’re in the process of rebranding the entire agency (new identity, new site, new direction, new you).

Oh, and we’re in San Diego. So that doesn’t suck.

Requirements: 8-10 years of large and small advertising agency experience, positive attitude, strong presentation skills, national consumer marketing and digital experience.

Salary will be commensurate with experience and competitive. We offer medical, dental, paid vacation, holidays, sick/PT, 401k and profit sharing, not to mention great weather.

Send resume to ad@baileygardiner.com.

OK, I know. No posts for days and then we have 3 in a row. But this is too important (at least to me) not to share right now. I’ll admit it, I was for Hillary. And I’m OK with Obama. But the guy I have always thought should be our president is Al Gore. I know, lots of people think he’s not “exciting” enough. President = exciting. I don’t really get that. What I do get, is that Gore speaks the truth. And this short video showcases that exactly.

Some of the BG team attended the San Diego Ad Club event last night that featured a discussion with Alex Bogusky. For those of you who aren’t familiar with who Bogusky is, he’s been hailed as the guy who built the hottest ad agency in the country and one of his staffers went so far as to say he resembles Jesus. Needless to say, I was very curious to attend the event last night and listen to him speak (and maybe even see him walk on water). Here are my top takeaways:

• Fear is the worst thing you or a client can have.
• Clients will often fear putting themselves out there or trying to do something different or new, but they rarely fear maintaining mediocrity. Why is that? 
• His agency always judges themselves and the effectiveness of their work by client sales. 
• Get rid of timesheets. Good work can’t be judged by the number of hours spent.
• He doesn’t believe in client conflicts. 
• If you’re buying less than 150 points in media you’re invisible. 
• If you want to grow business from local to regional and then regional to national you have to start proactively taking on those new clients. Example: If trying to expand client base to national from regional, you need to turn down the $5 million regional account and take on the $1 million national account. 
• Over invest in opportunities so you can then have cases and examples to roll out to other clients or potential new clients. 
• Start every new creative concept by writing a press release. 
• Would not and could not comment on Microsoft. Not even slightly or casually reference them. (I wonder if Bill Gates has a hit man following him around to be sure he doesn’t spill any juicy tid-bits?) 
• This one is just for fun: Kelsey (from BG) and I were trying to figure out who he reminded us of. Here’s where we landed:

Slightly resembles Billy Crudup. Might look like John Fogerty when he’s older. And maybe it’s just the hair, but a little bit of John Cougar Mellencamp.

  +   +  

This week, Cision released results of a recent survey that shows the growing importance of bloggers on mainstream media. What made the survey particularly relevant is that it focused on the top 20 national magazines and newspapers. Over the past year (June 2007 – June 2008) blogs and bloggers were mentioned 13,066 times. In 2005 is was only 2,179.

At BG, we see two trends with blogs. The first is that the media are following bloggers (and tweeters – more on that in another post) with increasing regularity. It’s often where they get their breaking news, as bloggers compete to get news first. Second, our clients are experiencing stronger traffic to their sites when mentioned on influential blogs than when covered by mainstream national media like Time.

Power is shifting and it’s important to track where it lies. Blogs not only break news and reveal trends, they indicate consumer sentiment. Rants and raves tell you what you’re doing right and wrong, in real time. Find the blogs that cover your industry. Track them through an RSS feed (see explanation below) and you will soon find that they are as important to your business as the other media you follow daily.

Another Opening Day of the Del Mar Races under our belt – oh how good it feels! The day was (and is) the talk of the town. You couldn’t turn on a radio, TV or pick up a paper or magazine and not know that the 69th season of the famed Racetrack was taking place.

From a PR perspective we accomplished the goal – saturate the market so everywhere you turn you see or hear about the racing season. Looks like it worked yet again considering we broke the previous Opening Day attendance record! Yesterday 43,000+ people came out to play where the Turf meets the Surf. A great way to start the season.

Here’s a look at the PR team lookin good on the big day. Keep in mind that we get dolled up around 11:30 a.m. after being at the track since 4:45 a.m. running around and coordinating over 100 interviews! It’s a looooong day, but after all the hard work we manage to have our share of fun.