Chris Miller on Marketing.com

The Marketing of Earthquakes in China (or lack thereof)

While most of us are well aware of the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti and the volcanic eruption in Iceland few of us are aware of a recent 6.9 magnitude quake in China.

In a recent spade of natural disasters, the quake last week in the Qinghai province responsible for 2,000 deaths so far has gone relatively unreported; perhaps hindered by a government-controlled media and a lack of access to the region. It took a few days of difficult travel for the media to access the area and assess the damage.

Luckily our friends at Google posted some satellite images to make surveying the devastation a whole lot easier by comparing before and after photos: Take a look »

The Chinese government notorious for censorship and downplaying conflict and disasters in the past has taken a decidedly different approach this time around by quickly sending aid to the region and allowing transparent reporting. Read on »

Google has set up a crisis response page, apparently not blocked by the Chinese government, to aid in relief efforts.

Marketing the Presidency, One E-mail at a Time

In an "unpresidented" move (pardon the pun), the first president to use e-mail while in office, let alone a Blackberry, Barack Obama has been forwarding copies of "highly-confidential" e-mails to The Guardian for over a year now. Read them here.

I believe few would disagree that this is little more than an ongoing marketing campaign toward increasing the perception of transparency of government and the White House, a stigma that plagued the last administration.

Last week's topics included a thoughtful e-mail to his daughter regarding how Bill and Hillary will likely spend Valentines Day apart, how different terminology makes a difference in public opinion polling on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and a humorous jab at John McCain and the GOP's disbelief of global warming. My biggest takeaway was a question: Did someone in the White House really throw a snowball at John McCain (from the East Wing of course), hilarious!

On a serious note, I sincerely hope nothing highly-confidential (e.g. matters of national security and internal discussions on public policy) is being sent by our president via plain-text e-mail/Blackberry, and certainly not to a British newspaper ahead of one published in the States.

As a marketing lesson, what better way to create transparency and outreach than through opening up lines of less-formal communication, especially ones with such positive undertones as these? Maybe this is part of the reason that I, along with many other leaders and CEOs, have started their own blogs.