Does consumer PR sell products or stock?

I had a beer a couple of weeks ago with Ian Barr from Hill and Knowlton, a large PR firm here in Toronto. We were chatting about how PR is used in modern business. One question I had was how many clients were coming to him to promote a new product versus coming to him explicitly wanting to impact their share price? Now, I’m not talking about investor relation or corporate PR – that’s always been focused on share price. I’m talking about consumer facing communications.

Ian said effecting the share price was not the main reason clients gave for planning a consumer campaign but that the conversation was coming up a lot more in meetings.

I guess the point behind my question was this: In a world where citizens create the media (blogs, etc), and the investment community monitor that media, the line between investor relations and consumer PR is blurring. If you want to effect share price in this scenario you put an ad on TV (or on YouTube) – not just in the business pages. Or to stick with the PR story – you message the masses, not just the business journalists.

I wonder how long it will be until the scales tip and marketing managers talk about share price first and product launches second? Maybe soon if the Bombardier commercials that played during the Superbowl are anything to go by.

ConceptShare makes it to Toronto (just) for DemoCamp 12

I’ve just got home from a fun night at DemoCamp – Toronto’s monthly tech meet-up.

Two guys deserve special mention: Scott Brooks and Bernie Aho from ConceptShare (the two people in this photo who arn’t Leo Laporte). Scott and Bernie drove through a blizzard all the way from Sudbury, crashed their car (they have photos to prove it) and STILL made it to the bar to give us all an update on ConcepShare. Apparently the site and the business are all roses with numbers of users skyrocketing and revenue doubling each month since their launch last year.

I got to know these two over a breakfast a few months back. They’re helpful, honest, passionate guys with a great product on their hands. If you are even a little bit interested in collaborating on creative projects with friends or work mates please check out their site – it’ll make your life a lot easier.

UPDATE: Mathew Ingram has a nice round-up of the event over on his blog.

This sounds like the party to be at tonight in Toronto…

Torontoist writes that tonight at 6pm Überave will be storming the hilarious Microsoft Vista promotional ice house to throw a party. Make sure you’re there right at 6pm though – I figure I’ll take security about 5 minutes to shut it down. Good luck Uberave!

C’mon!

This isn’t funny.

iPhone coming to Canada

Looks like Rogers will be bringing the iPhone to Canada. I’d love to know how soon and for how much?