A short note

As you may know, there was a minor tiff among bloggers that happened last week. I refuse to call it a controversy, because for me, having basic values like common sense, respect, and quality of output should always be a given when dealing with businesses - they're not negotiable nor reason for controversy. These values that constitute professionalism are important whether you're a blogger or not.

Anyway, we've all been hearing bloggers like me blabbing about the issue on how blogger-advertiser relationships should be handled. But what about advertisers? Are you curious about how they bring products and events to us? Most importantly, don't you want to know what they think of us?

...we also want to get to know bloggers and build long-lasting relationships with you—but we want the relationship to be built on equal respect for each other and not build a relationship with bloggers that are based on FEAR. Fear that you can lash out on our brands, and our campaigns, and criticize our every move and turn. We are just still learning, and if you can just give advertisers time to ease in.

So much criticisms and negativity have come out in the past few weeks on brands, media vendors, etc. on their attempts at entertaining and creatively communicate to the public and everything seems to boil down to some bloggers who immediately conclude things...Before writing another negative post on your very unfortunate experience with a brand, their campaign, promo, site, or event, try to find out who the best person you can talk to within the organization–for all you know you could actually create a bigger difference that way. If you have any friends within a brand’s company or even their agency that could be your start.

Read "Dear Pinoy Blogger: An Open Letter From An Advertiser". We all have lessons to learn. It just takes an open mind and a grain of salt.