“Marketing Magazine” reported today that “High Road Communications” is “opening a digital communications division.”

Here’s how High Road explained the new division in their press release:

High Road Communications has synthesized agency talent, experience and passion in VOX, a new social media and digital marketing division. The firm’s VOX team consists of seasoned communicators who specialize in the online and social media spaces. They provide a potent mix of traditional media relations skills and forward-looking technological knowledge to deliver effective, relevant and results-driven campaigns to the audiences that matter.

Kudos to High Road for doing this, it is indeed a much needed service and I’m sure they’ll do fine with it.

The High Road VOX team creates and delivers services including:

• Blog/ chat/ forum relations — targeting online journalists, enthusiast and special interest sites
• Online community relations — engaging online enthusiasts, brand Ambassadors, and promoting positive community partnerships
• Experiential marketing — creating innovative programs that deliver direct-to-consumer, grassroots and hands-on experiences

There’s one big problem with this that puts their “seasoned communicators who specialize in social media” in question. The problem? “vox.com”.

Vox is the upcoming social media site from industry leader “Six Apart”. Company founder “Mena Trott” talked about the roots of Vox “on Vox back on June 1st”. Of course, this begs the question — how could a group of social media experts go with a name that is being used by one of the top companies in the space as their “MySpace Killer”? Oops.

Should High Road do a quick about-face and rename now, or do they run the risk of having to say things like “Vox believes that Vox will have a major impact on the industry. No, not our Vox, Six Apart’s Vox.”

Ugh.

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Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on June 22, 2006.