There's an interesting discussion going on at gapingvoid and Seth Godin's blog entitled, "the multi-billion dollar suicide pact between clients and television."

As Hugh says, "Both Budweiser and Velveeta are permanently locked into what Seth Godin calls the "TV-Industrial Complex". And they have no credible way of freeing themselves from it. ... This is what Madison Avenue's main job is, from now on. Handling the multi-billion dollar suicide pact between clients and television."

Then Seth says, "Can the world of blogs etc. help Budweiser? Only on the margins. The world of new media is not the place to launch the next one-size-fits-all mega brand, nor is it the place to shore a flagging brand like that up."

I have thought for a long time that, since the big brands get to throw their money around in mass media and other big worlds, it would be unfair of them to trounce around in "our" little gardens.

But, what Seth and Hugh are saying is that it is not only "unfair," but impossible. These big brands are in a sinking ship, but they've claimed stake there, so they have to go down with it.

Big brands starting blogs have been laughable projects at best and mostly offensive. Perhaps this is the only way that big brands can imagine the use of social media. Being down-to-earth and human is the antithesis of what they stand for.

Big brands are... big. They are driven to make big money and get bigger. They just keep biggering and biggering and biggering (Dr. Seuss). That doesn't sound very "folksy" to me. Participating in social media requires a human voice.

In an anologous story, I remember having lunch in the lunchroom of a company I used to work at with my fellow co-workers (like we did everyday). All of a sudden, the CEO, who never said more than two words to any of us, walked in, set his brown paper bag on the table and started a discussion. I remember feeling seriously annoyed. Nothing was genuine about this gesture (it was a one time thing that I found out was prompted by a self-improvement seminar he went to the day before) and the conversation we had was strange. It was forced and centered around his discussion of innovations and how we can all pitch in to grow the company. I stopped wanting to have lunch in the lunchroom and I'm certain that he went back to his corner office feeling like he mingled well with us. He continued to mostly ignore us in the hallways.

Is this what big brands in the blogosphere would feel like?