Charity, as we all know, begins at home. We all give in our own ways, some of us more than others. But we all know, in our heart of hearts, that we could probably give a bit more. This explains why I sometimes walk a different route through town to avoid well-known charity mugger hotspots. I suspect I am not alone in these guilt avoidance tactics. I strongly suspect that there are people out there who this very lunchtime hurriedly walked past a pretty girl wearing a green tabard standing on a high street who was just wondering if you had a few minutes to talk about poverty.
Don’t feel bad if you did. There’s a metro supermarket next to our offices. The supermarket chain in question has taken the dubious/laudable decision of allowing charity spare change collectors into the shop, not only that but they stand at the end of the checkouts between the customers and the exit. Today I went to a different sandwich shop rather than have to feel guilty about the starving millions moments after buying an overpriced ham sandwich and a BIGEAT bag of Monster Munch.
I’m digressing a touch here, but only in order to demonstrate the lengths I’ll go to in order to avoid something I feel genuinely guilty about. I’m doing this to help explain why I feel no guilt whatsoever in telling PRs that I have no interest in their boring obscure clients, even if they’ve just offered to take me for a few pints and spot of grub.
One PR firm has been badgering me to meet up “for a few informal beers” for some time. It’s not that I’ve been avoiding or ignoring their emailed invitations, it’s just that the allure of free drinks actually wore off sometime ago. Today, however, I displayed a moment of weakness. I was sent a reminder invite email and I was feeling generous, maybe I would swap some of my free time for some of their free booze after all:
Hi the Finisher,
If you remember I mentioned last month about inviting you for drinks or a bite to eat with the PR team – are you free sometime in September for us to set this up?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Kind regards,
Annabel B Peeyah
I said:
Hi A BPR
Yep, sorry, I meant to get back to you. The Escapist and I have checked our diaries, and September Xth is free.
Hope you can do that date
Cheers
The Finisher
Moments later - and we are talking seconds here, rather than minutes - I received another email from Annabel that conjured up images of the supermarket dwelling charity worker:
Thanks for getting back to me The Finisher
Yes that date sounds great to us! Would you be keen to go for a drink near us (in Soho) or is there anywhere in particular a bit closer to you that you would prefer?
Also, would you be interested in having an introductory briefing with the CEO and founder of OBSCUROmobile, the managed service provider. Its UnHeardof Technology Platform underpins many core operator services including:
- Mobile advertising/marketing – including competitions, polls and auctions
- Content management – including acquisition, device management and digital rights management
- User generated content – for example the sharing of mobile MMS photo messages and videos
- Instant messaging ‘on the move’
- Mobile ‘blogging’
- Caller ring back tones – where a caller hears a subscriber’s choice of musical greeting instead of a dialling tone when calling a number
The CEO would be keen to talk to you about a variety of topics of interest for your readers including mobile messaging, mobile advertising and user generated content – would this be something of interest?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Kind regards,
A BPR
I don’t know whether this is genuinely Bad PR or just plain clumsy PR. She’d have been better placed waiting until or even after the drinks. Now I’m not really sure I want to go along and put a face to the name, she might well be wearing a green tabard and shaking a bucket of spare change at me.
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