By Linda Forrest
There was a study released earlier this week suggesting that less than half of PR people (at least those surveyed) deemed the press release “useful.”
Some of the data from the study caused me to give my head a firm shake:
“One of the main reasons for the decline of the press release is the recent explosion of the use of social media in public relations and the perception that releases are less relevant in those venues. A majority (64%) of respondents who issue releases say they target them most often to print outlets, while 23% send them to online news and financial sites.”
Uh, what?
It seems to me that what we have here is a nomenclature problem.
Press release. News release. Social media release.
Do these three designations conjure up significantly different images in your mind? Or is the name of your interface with the media irrelevant and the effectiveness of the tactic and content of the piece what’s most important?
I would argue it’s clearly the latter.
It seems that a large swath of the PR industry would rather spend time arguing about what to call communications materials or complain about how shoddy tactics are ineffective instead of find the most efficient ways to work with media targets, regardless of what the interface is called.
The best practitioners know that one market-facing document does not fit all, and that a range of materials will need to be developed and the pitch tailored for specific targets. That said, the call-it-what-you-will release still has a role to play. An important one.
In our industry, I would argue that people throw around the terms “press release,” “media release” and “news release” and that they are used fairly interchangeably. It’s difficult to find consensus on the internet about what the commonly accepted definition is for each of these terms because there are arguments in a lot of different directions. If you ask me, it doesn’t really matter; it’s merely semantics.
If the study is referring to the antiquated press release that’s merely sent to print media, then yes, of course this is not the most effective methodology to employ in 2009 if you’re hoping to get coverage for your clients. If the study is referring to the effectiveness of news releases, which are more widely distributed to all types of media, then I heartily disagree that they’re “a necessary evil” or not useful.
A well crafted release that contains, without hyperbole, all the facts of a story, a strong lead, meaningful statistics, pertinent contact information and information on how to find out more about the story, is an effective tool and will be welcome to journalists, if the subject matter is of interest to them and if the release is compelling and if the story resonates with the reporter, and if… While some reporters hate releases on principle – and who can blame them, when the least of our industry has been sending out preposterous drivel and sullying PR’s good name for years – others welcome the concise details that either enable them to write a story without further inputs or provide them with the necessary tools to investigate further.
There’s a lot of hullabaloo about the “social media release.” I would argue that any well-crafted release in the year 2009 would contain social media elements. If it doesn’t, you should strongly consider whether your agency is serving you well. SEO should be a consideration when crafting a release and, increasingly, access to photos and videos and direction to interactive channels such as Twitter profiles and LinkedIn profiles are becoming commonplace.
The unfortunately named “spray and pray” style of public relations never garnered the success that considered and focused efforts do. Has any company in history achieved the full potential of its story merely by sending out a “press release?” Probably not. We’ve already talked about the secret to successful PR on this blog: it’s hard work, applied consistently against the right targets. That’s it. A release may or may not be an effective tactic, depending on the nature of the story, but it is by no means an ineffective tool. Media relations is so much more than sending out a release and practitioners, prospects and customers who don’t understand that are fated to be disappointed in their PR efforts because they simply don’t understand the discipline.
By Linda Forrest
While we’ve previously shared on this blog what we feel are best practices when it comes to the use of embargoes and, after seeing a PR misstep, recommended that it would have been an effective tactic, the debate continues on whether embargoes are still an effective tool for PR practitioners or will even be honoured by an increasingly user-generated media for whom the old newsroom rules do not apply. A group of folks from both sides of the debate gathered yesterday to discuss the pros and cons. What do you think?
By Linda Forrest
Last week, my family went on a quick trip to the States to do some shopping. As with any good roadtrip, we brought along handfuls of CDs (we’re old school like that) and listened to quite a few different albums on our trip there and back. One of these was the fabulous new record by Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johansson, the latter better known as an A-list actress than a singer. The album is doing quite well; at the time of writing, it was sitting at 80 on the Billboard Top 200, having peaked at 41. Entirely respectable for an album from a largely unknown entity (Yorn) and starlet (Johansson.) They’ve been making the rounds on a full-scale publicity campaign, and I caught a minute or two of them on Ellen a few weeks ago. It turns out the album was recorded several years ago, that Yorn and Johansson just happen to be friends, and that when Yorn decided he wanted to record an album of duets, he contacted Johansson and asked her to be the female singer, not really knowing whether she could sing or not. Ellen said what most of us were thinking when she asked — and I’m paraphrasing — what made you think she could sing? And Yorn responded that he didn’t even know if she could sing, then in an AP article he said, “I figured, you know, most actors are multi-talented. They’ve got to be able to do a lot of things and they probably have some ability to sing.”
He’s absolutely right. It used to be that actors did indeed have to be multi-talented: actor, singer, dancer, and potentially more. Gene Kelly comes initially to mind. Sinatra. John Travolta. Jennifer Lopez. On and on… More recently it seems that successful actors are talented in more technical areas like writing, producing and directing, in addition to their skills in front of the camera. Arguably the most talented of Hollywood’s current line-up that can do it all is Clint Eastwood – actor, writer, director, producer, songwriter, singer, dancer — and incredibly talented in all of these areas.
Point being, in today’s competitive marketplace, marketers, like actors, need to be multi-talented. And while a PR company like ours might not immediately spring to mind as the proper service provider for some of the more strategic marketing communications disciplines, we’ve been reminded more often than once recently that our skill set and experience lend themselves well to providing counsel on bigger picture marketing strategy issues. Our fearless inmedia leader has recognized and identified this opportunity and as a result, our business is gradually moving up-stream. His post yesterday not only details the beginnings of this transition and the reasons for it, but also points to exactly the issues I’ve mentioned here.
By Linda Forrest
This past week, there’s been a lot of brouhaha in the media about Baby Einstein and the refund that Disney, the parent company of Baby Einstein, is offering. The New York Times called the refund offer “a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect,” a damning admission and a triumphant affirmation for those who believe, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, that television under the age of two is, in fact, damaging to children, impeding their language development and at the very least, not improving their cognitive ability, an audacious claim that was made in the early days of baby videos.
In my personal opinion, it’s very interesting to see a company as powerful as Disney subject itself to the financial loss and damage to its image that is inevitable by offering this refund. With more than one-third of American households having at least one Baby Einstein DVD and the company offering $15.99 for up to four DVDs per household, the potential cost is significant. (Disney, however, has a gazillion dollars and is unlikely to feel any real pain from this exercise.) The reasons for it doing so are up for debate, but the company’s detractors say it stems from a pending Federal Trade Commission complaint against the company for making false claims about the “educational value” of such videos, while Disney says a money-back guarantee is standard policy and available to any dissatisfied customer. Who is to say what the real reason is.
There’s no group of people more ardent about their beliefs and their methods than dedicated parents and so this recent battle has been heated. Largely fought between the Walt Disney Company and the Center for Commercial-Free Childhood, a group that self-identifies as a “coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups, parents, and individuals who care about children,” the fight has more recently become a mud-slinging brawl between the CCFC’s leader and the general manager of the Baby Einstein brand.
It’s significant to note that while trying to put together this post, I was unable to access the vitriolic letter that the president of Baby Einstein had posted, targeted at the CCFC’s leader, so inundated is the Baby Einstein web site; whether it’s media commentators, marketing communications professionals or parents flocking to the site, I can’t say. All that I can hope is that some marketing communications representative from Disney saw the letter, thought better of it and removed it from the site. Bits and pieces of the ill-advised posting are discussed here.
As a young parent, I have strong opinions about this issue, but I’m not willing to share them here. It’s up to each family how they operate their households and what they expose their children to; so long as that responsibility is undertaken with careful consideration and respect for the children involved, who is anyone else to judge what other parents do?
I’m confident in saying that entire research papers or books could be written on the complex marketing history of the Baby Einstein brand. It’s a conversation that delves into the sociological and philosophical responsibilities and roles of companies that market to children and their parents, and certainly, while interesting, extends well beyond the scope of this post.
As marketers, what simple lessons can we learn from this exercise? As another blogger so eloquently put it, “Why do brands make promises that they can’t keep or [worse] over extend an offering? The truth is, if it sounds too good to be true it likely is.”
If a company as large and powerful as Disney with legions of marketing professionals on staff can flub its marketing message and compound the goof by reacting angrily to its opponents in a public forum, then it can happen to any of us if we’re not careful. Carefully craft your marketing messages, make promises that you can deliver and always, ALWAYS, mind your Ps and Qs when you’re talking to the marketplace. Or suffer the consequences.
By Linda Forrest
Let me preface this by saying that I love Garth Brooks. I think that truly, beyond being a spectacular entertainer, he’s an exceptional human being, devoted father and just seems like an all around wonderful person. I’m very excited that he’s announced his un-retirement and wish him every success in all his future endeavors. I saw him in concert and sat way in the back, but it was one of the best live shows I have ever seen – and I’ve seen hundreds, if not more than 1,000 shows – and he rocked the socks off every single person in that stadium.
Yet, whomever is counseling him on PR tactics dropped the ball in a big way earlier this week when he announced his coming out of retirement. One would hope that, given there were years to plan an announcement such as this, the fact that the news media is instantaneous and voracious wouldn’t slip by whomever planned his announcement. An announcement of this nature, from the most successful solo artist of all time, the man who’s sold more records than anyone – including Elvis, the Beatles, and Celine Dion – since they started tracking record sales with Soundscan, was bound to attract unparalleled attention. And they flubbed it.
My understanding is that he did a news conference in the morning, at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to announce that he’s coming out of retirement. What he didn’t announce was any plans to do, well, anything specific. (Aside: he did, however, talk about neighbouring rights for performers, copyright issues, how downloading is killing the industry and that musicians need to rise up and regain ownership of their works–all issues near and dear to me. Swoon.)
Having watched some of the news conference, I understand that Garth wanted to announce it to those particular reporters in that particular room first, as they’ve always supported him and he wanted them to be the first to know the big news.
The media world jumped on the story and immediately it was all over the news, web sites, etc. Some of the coverage was sarcastic, saying “Garth Brooks comes out of retirement to do nothing.”
Herein lies the problem.
Later that same day, Garth announced from Las Vegas that he’s signed on for a bunch of shows at a casino, a la Celine Dion. Great! Amazing! However, half the news media is reporting that you’ve come out of retirement but got no plans. Big problem.
In my humble opinion, this two-tiered approach to his announcement was a huge PR misstep. It could have been avoided by employing one simple tactic: embargo.
You want to give the scoop to those journalists first? Fine, great. How very thoughtful. But make sure that the footage and coverage doesn’t get out until after you’ve done the second press conference, announcing your comeback shows. Otherwise, you’re in the position we’re in now, trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.
The Internet is littered with articles with snarky headlines, and clumsily added “updates” that say, “oh, I guess he is doing something after all …”
A visit to his official web site confirms that it hasn’t been updated in more than a year. There’s absolutely no mention of this new stage in his career, nor of the upcoming shows, ticket information, etc.
I’m a bit flummoxed, truthfully, at how clumsily this whole thing has been handled. Because he’s been retired, perhaps he’s without management at the moment, or lacks a full-time publicist to counsel him on how best to manage something of this magnitude … That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. But still, surely there is some communications professional that’s responsible for this debacle. I’m certain that Garth is an eminently reasonable man who would face a pile of sarcastic press clippings and shrug them off, but frankly, whoever was in charge of this announcement really screwed up.
What can we learn from this episode? Careful planning is required when making important announcements. Don’t rush it, don’t go off half-cocked, make sure that you’re providing your targets with the information that they need, when they need it. Remember that the media is instantaneous – there’s no lag, no lead time on breaking stories. As soon as it’s out of your mouth, it’s in the media, the public record, and there’s no taking it back or qualifying it. It’s a lot harder to refine a message once it’s out there.
The tickets for Garth’s comeback are sure to set records in terms of how quickly the shows sell out, and rightly so. Let’s hope that he uses some of the proceeds of the concerts to get proper communications counsel on staff.
