Embargos: What’s all the fuss about?
By Danny Sullivan
Following Michael Arrington’s pre-Christmas attack on PR embargoes, I think it’s a topic that is still worth exploring, particularly for those unfamiliar with how to use them effectively.
Why would anyone agree to embargo a news story in the first place? An embargo is supposed to be a tool that makes things easier on the time-constrained reporters who cover breaking news, allowing them the time to build their story ahead of the release date. The company providing the embargo realizes the added benefit of helping insulate coverage of their story against the possible negative impact of bigger “on the day” news, and can also gain more detailed coverage as a result.
So it’s like an exclusive? No. An exclusive is given to a single outlet, whereas an embargo is a set date and time for release of the news that can be agreed upon with any number of media.
But how can you ensure that the embargo is not broken? Herein lies the rub. An embargo is not a legally binding contract and is entirely based on trust. As such, embargoes should only be taken up with media that can be trusted to adhere to them.
The growing problem with using embargoes in today’s online society is that there is now much more to be gained from breaking them. As Arrington explains, “Traffic and links flow in to whoever breaks an embargo first.” This added incentive to break the agreement means that the trust element is ever more important.
So, are embargoes no longer a worthwhile option for the PR professional? On the contrary, I would argue that they are still just as useful as they have ever been. The point is not to use an embargo without due care and attention. Sending a news story to 50 media contacts with “Embargoed until…” marked on the header is not going to cut it. At a minimum, agreement has to be reached through personal contact with each target before any information is imparted. But it is also important to ensure that those contacts you are reaching out to are the least likely to break the story – for example, they should have an ongoing interest in your company and products, or you should have already dealt with them successfully in the past. Media that value the relationship they have with your company are much less likely to break an embargo than those that have little real knowledge of your story and will think nothing of damaging the relationship in order to be first with a story.
