Show bloggers respect

"When I first heard that NPower was causing a ruckus I was shocked! Why would such a great org cause so much strife. Oh, wrong NPower.

Now this NPower does bring a good name to its activities. www.npower.org"

Oh my!

I do declare!

That was the response that graced my comments box in March when I was commenting on the PR disaster that npower was creating for itself.

The affected Deep South phrases are mine.

Oxfordshire beauty spot Radley Lakes was being filled in by nPower to dispose of ash much to the bewilderment and opposition of locals and many others.

npower decided to use a gagging order from the courts to stop legitimate protest. The Mc crisis way of doing PR.

Anyway, I got a comment from npower, an unsophisticated marketing employee no doubt on a high wage, who feebly tried to point to all the brilliant charity work they do.

Don't get me wrong I like comments and I am sure the company do some admirable charity work. However that is irrelevant here. The npower rep did not address the issue but came over as patronising, skirting round the issue and hoping we would forget the npower's actions in Oxfordshire because it does some good thing in the USA.

Why bring this up now?

Well, no particularly strong reason except I have been talking about astrosurfing - putting in comments to back up a product or service and passing them off as independent comment although they are from a company with vested interests - with Robin Hamman of the BBC.

I have also mentioned recently Charles Arthur of the Guardian and the ridiculous pitches he gets from PR agencies to feature on his blog. And I have had my own experiences.

It is a small comment but it is so insulting to my intelligence that it rankles, think how annoying it would be to someone much cleverer.

A little transparency and respect goes a long way.

Besides the npower marketer completely ignoring the content of the entry, getting the case of their company wrong, that is lower case to start (I believe although I could be wrong and do not much care), when my entry criticising npower comes up on a search their are lots of npower pay per clicks. I know this might not be their fault but it brings a wry smile as they say.