HP’s Backstage at Sundance blog is progressing nicely. The bloggers are doing a great job sharing their experiences at the festival. And I am having a blast pulling WireImage pictures to accompany our posts about stars who’ve agreed to participate in the charity auction.
For me, the fact that we are announcing who is participating in the auction on the blog is pretty much the most exciting thing about the blog.
Yes, you read that right: HP is using a blog as a primary method to disseminate news. Now, granted, not news related to its core business, and definitely news well suited to online outreach. And we are also doing PR outreach in the traditional fashion. But there won’t be a traditional press release about the auction participants until the festival is over, whereas we are releasing the names of the stars on the blog as they join.
Bottom line, in my opinion, it is a very positive step forward when a big company “gets it” in any fashion, large or small.
And the blog is about more than the auction; the HP employees who are its principal writers are on the ground in Park City as volunteers and staff for HP’s many activities throughout the festival. They are blogging about being there, who they meet, where they eat. And so on…
I particularly wanted to alert my readers to the auction. Of course, some of the stars are very well known like Jennifer Aniston and The Police (!) and their pics will probably sell for a lot (or at least they will if I do my job!). But some are less well known, if equally talented, and it is possible to get a cool picture and a cool printer for a decent price that also benefits charity. What could be better than that! Last time, I bid on (and won) the picture and HP printer signed by Alan Cumming. We love the printer and the picture is going in my son’s room (Alan Cumming was in X-Men 2.)
Check it out. Tell them I sent you 🙂