Blogs meet the BS detector

The Pennsylvania Department of Tourism is promoting itself via blogs. Watch the videos for extra cheese. It touches on this recent CNN article.

"Don't go toward fake blogs. Don't launch character blogs. Use a blog for what it's for, transparency," said Steve Rubel, vice president of client services at CooperKatz & Co., a New York PR firm.

...He and other PR professionals can rattle off blogs gone wrong -- usually "fake blogs" that stir up the ire of bloggers by hiding the fact that they are really ad campaigns, such as one McDonald's posted in advance of a Super Bowl campaign about a Lincoln-shaped french fry."

In all fairness, the PA Dept. of Tourism made no bones about what it was doing. Here's another corporate blog/ad campaig. Shameless promotion? Yes. Will it help drive sales and build the brand? Probably.