Gone off track From BMW M8 Coupe & Convertible thread

[Ultimate Car Guy]

Why do @bmwblog watermark the manufacturer's official photos?

 

[bmwblog]

Why do @bmwblog watermark the manufacturer's official photos?

Why? Because we have an embargo, we work hard to prepare for the launch, then the others that don't do the work or don't have them, they take them without any credit.

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

Why? Because we have an embargo, we work hard to prepare for the launch, then the others that don't do the work or don't have them, they take them without any credit.

I understand that you have an embargo but those photographs are not owned by BMWBlog. They were commissioned and paid-for directly by BMWs press department.

Also, what hard work do you perform exactly? All of the material (photos, specs, text etc.) are pre-prepared by the manufacturer before launch and released to the media outlets. All you have to do is just copy-and-paste.

When it comes to test drives, interviews etc. the manufacturer pays for your flights and accommodation to attend at a nice location in a different country. The interviews with the designers and engineers are organised and arranged by their press department. They literally tell you what to say in your blogs and articles.

What i'm trying to say is that all of the material that you post (photos, specs and data, text) come directly from the manufacturer and is spoon-fed to the media outlets. The hard work that you allude to barely registers to the hard work done by the manufacturer. You guys just get the credit for someone else's work.

 

[bmwblog]

I understand that you have an embargo but those photographs are not owned by BMWBlog. They were commissioned and paid-for directly by BMWs press department.

Also, what hard work do you perform exactly? All of the material (photos, specs, text etc.) are pre-prepared by the manufacturer before launch and released to the media outlets. All you hav...

WOW! So wrong in so many ways!

So let me start with first. The photos are media use, many sites watermark them for many reasons.

Next, it's an insult to say we copy and paste. You might wanna head over and see the work we put into a launch. We curate the content from a press release to pick the relevant info, and so much more.

Next,

"When it comes to test drives, interviews etc. the manufacturer pays for your flights and accommodation to attend at a nice location in a different country. The interviews with the designers and engineers are organised and arranged by their press department. They literally tell you what to say in your blogs and articles."

So wrong again. We request the interviews. We prepare for them with meaningful questions and that goes up to board level members. I guarantee you that no one tell us what to write and many times, we are negative towards certain cars. You can search past posts here where we were accused that we don't always love the brand.

Last,

What i'm trying to say is that all of the material that you post (photos, specs and data, text) come directly from the manufacturer and is spoon-fed to the media outlets. The hard work that you allude to barely registers to the hard work done by the manufacturer. You guys just get the credit for someone else's work."

You clearly have no idea how the media business works and the relationship between media and companies. They don't exist without each other.

Again, you have no clue the amount of work that goes into publishing, we work 365 days a year. NO DAY OFF! We create lots of content, fly to places on our own dime, sometimes trips overseas for 24 hrs with almost no sleep, we do test drives, filming, photos, social media, etc...

It's because of people like you that don't appreciate the work we do that we might stop posting here and offer insight. At some points you just have to let it go and not argue online with anyone.

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

WOW! So wrong in so many ways!

So let me start with first. The photos are media use, many sites watermark them for many reasons.

Next, it's an insult to say we copy and paste. You might wanna head over and see the work we put into a launch. We curate the content from a press release to pick the relevant info, and so much more.


"When it come...

I work in the car industry and been for about 15 years now. Specifically, i work for one of the big German manufacturers in the Central Controlling and Corporate Planning Division. My role entails, among other things, is to plan and forecast the business' finances for the next 5 years. I work closely with all divisions within this organisation to devise their plans and targets for the next 5 years. As at the end of May, i finalised the Press and PR budgets for multiple brands as part of PR68 (Planning Round 68). I know how this business works and i know quite intimately how the Press and PR Division operates.

Basically, you and your website act as a pawn and as an extension of the manufacturer's marketing department. You only know what the manufacturer decides tells you. All the interviews that you claim to have "arranged" are carefully planned, choreographed and vetted by the Press and PR division. It ensures that BMW send a clear and consistent narrative.

You mention that neither BMW nor yourselves can live without each other. That’s not true. If you were to disappear, then another media outlet is waiting in the wings to replace you. Futhermore, you’re not independent and cannot express truly honest criticism about the brand. Should you do otherwise, then BMW will no longer invite you to any of their product launches, grant you interviews or provide you with the material you require to operate your website.

A link to the BMW Press Club website is as follows: PressClub Global..

I would urge our forum members to visit this website and examine it in detail. Before too soon, you will discover that BMW Blog fails to offer anything meaningful above and beyond the BMW Press Club website. They use the exact same pictures from the press pack and just reword the text provided.

Have a look at the Press Kit on the M8 Competition: The new BMW M8 Coupe and BMW M8 Competition Coupe. The new BMW M8 Convertible and BMW M8 Competition Convertible..

BMWBlog just take this Kit, watermark the pictures as their own, reword the entire text and just add some of their opinion.

 

[bmwblog]

"Should you do otherwise, then BMW will no longer invite you to any of their product launches, grant you interviews or provide you with the material you require to operate your website."

Yup, all magazines are banned if they don't write positively

"BMWBlog just take this Kit, watermark the pictures as their own, reword the entire text and just add some of their opinion."

Okay, moving on, pointless. If you ever truly wanna learn more about us, feel free to reach out via email.

Thanks for your opinion.

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

"Should you do otherwise, then BMW will no longer invite you to any of their product launches, grant you interviews or provide you with the material you require to operate your website."

Yup, all magazines are banned if they don't write positively

"BMWBlog just take this Kit, watermark the pictures as their own, reword the entire text and just a...

If you think the work you produce is meaningful and should be appreciated, then why don't you put a paywall? See if people are actually willing to pay for the stuff you produce. If you work as hard as you claim, and you produce original and valuable content, then you should be remunerated for it.

Within the industry there is an old saying about car reviews: a media outlet will only provide honest and meaningful criticism of a product when the next generation is released.

There are so many factors at play which hinders a media outlet from communicating honest and meaningful criticism:

1. Product Launch Junket: The manufacturer flies you on Business Class to some exotic location (either Spain, Greece or Portugal) where you stay in a 5-star hotel and pampered with fine meals. There is no way that a journalist will give a bad review after receiving this type of treatment

2. Advertising: Media outlets rely on the advertising dollars brought-in by the manufacturers to pay the wages of its staff. Should you piss-off an advertising manufacturer, then your pay-packet is in jeopardy

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

Hi Mods,

Please take to liberty to move my off-topic posts to another thread.

I know i've been quiet negative and tough to BMWBlog, but i've just received certain insights at work that has left me bitterly disappointed with the motoring media.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

Hi Mods,

Please take to liberty to move my off-topic posts to another thread.

I know i've been quiet negative and tough to BMWBlog, but i've just received certain insights at work that has left me bitterly disappointed with the motoring media.

I find sometimes the media quite criminal. And this is not from today but even 10-20 years ago it was the same. They were dependant on the incomes from the manufacturers advertisement budgets and the results from the test were in favour of the bigger spender, which usually happened to be the VAG. If we take a magazine from 2008 for example comparing the 3er, C and A4 we can see that dynamically the A4 is on the level of the 3er and even better, but if you take this magazine comparing now the same cars as second hand (where the producer doesn't have interest to "invest"), you can read how there is a big gap between these cars in the dynamic department in favour of the rear wheel drive. For me the main reason of shifting the 1er BMW to FWR is the constant lack of appraisal of it's dynamic excellence and superiority of its RWD. And now when it's gone they will start to whine how much they miss it.

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

I find sometimes the media quite criminal. And this is not from today but even 10-20 years ago it was the same. They were dependant on the incomes from the manufacturers advertisement budgets and the results from the test were in favour of the bigger spender, which usually happened to be the VAG. If we take a magazine from 2008 for example co...

I can name you 2 examples: the F30 3 Series and the 991 Porsche 911. When both cars were released, the media was gushing with praise for both cars given their recent conversion to electric steering. I remember reading a review performed by Autocar where they gave the F30 3 Series 5-stars during its launch; praising it's steering. I remember the motoring media gushing with praise over the new 991 Porsche 911; failing to criticize it's steering.

We all know that both the F30 and 991 had crap steering. The BMW was too light and it felt dead. The Porsche was numb and had no feel whatsoever.

It's only when the F30 and the 991 were replaced with the G20 3 Series and the 992 Porsche 911 did the reviewers mention the mediocre steering of both cars.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

In my language we have a saying: The one who pays orders the music. I hate reading or watching reviews of new cars, because even if they are a little different from each ather in all the reviewers you can feel the masage that the manufacturer wanted to communicate. But luckily in all this ocean of servants there is a small island on which the objectivity and professionalism still lives z Fast Lap with Christian Menzel

 

[manuelf]

The discussion between @bmwblog and @Ultimate Car Guy originally started on the topic on watermarking BMW press room pics with your own tags ...
Then the topic broadened up - and even if I have partially a similar view as @Ultimate Car Guy, such a discussion gets obviously very personal and nasty ... so I'm holding back!

But back to the watermarking topic, I still fail to see, why it is done... BMW sends out those pressroom photo packs some time before the media launch of a vehicle to hundreds of media and tells them exactly, when embargo ends and they are allowed to publish it.
So if me as a consumer sees then at launch day exactly the same picture (copyright by BMW) 30 times with a different watermark of a different magazine, blog, vlog, website, ... what exactly shall it tell me?
I would FULLY understand if BMW would do those watermarks specifically for the media, to which they hand out the press photo pack just to be able to track, who is violating the embargo by pre-releasing the pics ... but this is not the case!

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

It's because of people like you that don't appreciate the work we do that we might stop posting here and offer insight.

LOL! This hilarious!

BMWBlog, is this a threat? Seriously!

What insights have you provided?
Have you performed any rigorous and meaningful analysis that required many hours of research and investigation?
Have you obtained any data and information, that isn't a direct copy-and-paste from BMW Press Club, to deeply analyze the commercial and technical significance of this new car?
Have you even attempted to obtain meaningful commentary from respected industry commentators such as Max Warburton or industry papers such as McKinsey Automotive & Assembly?
Have you tried to gain design insights from respected commentators at cardesignnews.com or driventowrite.com?
Have you even tried to obtain commentary from authoritative automotive industry legends such as Bob Lutz or Wolfgang Reitzle?
Have you even studied the latest worldwide trends in sales by mining-through data from JATO?

Have you leaked any photos of any upcoming models?

I guess the answer to most if not all of the above questions is an emphatic NO!

All you've done is just copy-and-paste photos of the car from the BMW Press Club website. And to be honest, we have a few members in this forum who would do this exact same task in your absence - and without the silly watermarks.

I'm going to be brutal about this but you're only here because you're trying to raise awareness to your website and to divert more traffic towards it. That's why you're posting pictures owned by BMW with your watermark. You're not doing us a favor. This forum is doing YOU a favor because it's giving you free advertising.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

The discussion between @bmwblog and @Ultimate Car Guy originally started on the topic on watermarking BMW press room pics with your own tags ...
Then the topic broadened up - and even if I have partially a similar view as @Ultimate Car Guy, such a discussion gets obviously very personal and nasty ......

It' a kind of free advertisement, which would lead people visiting the site and generating the so important view numbers.

 

[advantage20]

I am neither in the auto PR industry nor in the auto media industry, but if anything, the grim picture of this relationship that you are painting, Ultimate Car Guy, ultimately comes across as way worse for the manufacturers whose work and efforts you are praising than for the media outlets you are targeting.

If the myriad of auto media out there are basically just remote-controlled mouthpieces of the extensive auto PR work, which masquerade as independent information sources in exchange for being paid easy money, flown to exotic locations, granted access to exclusive events... Well that's even less flattering for the auto manufacturer than for the media. That a multi-billion behemoth would go to such lengths to corrupt information outlets to get fake positive reviews (which effectively equates to duping the customers) and, if insufficiently subordinate, bully and fire them on a whim, this sugar daddy to sugar baby or millionaire to low grade escort type of relationship is even more humiliating for the massive heavy cash provider than for the mass of tiny recipients.

As for the photo watermarking, as you say, one can easily find the clean pictures online, and if one particular media pisses a reader off for claiming undeserved credit he'll just switch to another media just as easily as BMW would dump an insubordinate outlet. I'm not in a position to judge how much work is put in by a media such as BMW Blog, but I'm pretty sure that if BMW allows its photos being watermarked by the authorized media it is because this doesn't bother them and actually contributes to serving their needs by encouraging the dissemination of the photos by apparently credible media sources.

 

[Ultimate Car Guy]

imately comes across as way worse for the manufacturers whose work and efforts you are praising than for the media outlets you are targeting

I'm not praising this type of behaviour. I think it's unethical.

 

[Der Hofmeister]

Ultimate Car Guy, everybody understood your points, but what is enough is enough. You are certainly exceeding some limits and annoying most of GCF members. This thread is about the M8, not about fighting and arguments.

What Horatiu does with his website is brilliant and admirable. I don't think it is valid or ethical to put him under such fire. Most of all, he is a great asset for this forum and most of the members see and recognize that.

 

[Matski]

My two cents...

Watermarking doesn't bother me, it's perhaps a little less relevant these days as many sites will cache linked images rather than maintain a hotlink to another website, but this was a problem. I think GCF caches linked images and therefore posting images here directly from BMWBlog.com wouldn't suck up their bandwidth, but in the past this has been a problem - so one of the purposes of watermarking was to at least get some exposure back for being the site that was paying to host the image. Since then it's just become the done thing... in the era of free digital content this is one of the prices we pay.

BMWBlog have published photographs that I've taken before, both watermarked and unwatermarked, personally I'm fine with their policy on it.

 

[braaf]

Why? Because we have an embargo, we work hard to prepare for the launch, then the others that don't do the work or don't have them, they take them without any credit.

But they're not yours.

 

[CrunchSlaughtered]

All the negativity aside. I think it will be an absolute rocket with switchable AWD. Thinking about it, very few performance GTs have AWD.

I am intrigued about mechanical differences between the M8 and M5. Weight is a concern but I hope that electronic can help disguise any bulk.

The days of feather light sports car are past.

I think that there are no mechanical differences except the reinforced chassis. Being one tenth of the second quicker could be because the numbers of the M5 are artificially a bit underrated in order to allow the M8 to be on top.