We’ve been added to the blogroll of one Steve Earl http://www.rainierpr.co.uk/earl/. He’s the managing director of Rainier PR, a tech PR firm based in London.
He’s got some interesting views this lad. Not least of which is his suggestion that the credit crunch could be a good time to start up a tech PR firm.
“Tech PR seems to be holding its own in this country, but equally several agencies have been laying people off recently. It’s not a time for the faint-hearted, but my guess is that the strong will shine through and we’ll see several hot tech PR start-ups born over the next year that become the next generation of challengers,” he says.
Does that mean the credit crunch is bad for Bad PR?
Not likely, transparent attempts to angle, or rather mangle, tech firms’ products into stories loosely based on the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the troubles at HBOS are as plentiful as they are irrelevant.
I know taking a current affairs story of national/global importance and then working your client in somehow is a common trick, but it is seldom effective. It’s just a waste of everyone’s time.
“The US is failing to win over ‘hearts and minds’ in Iraq. Would you be interested in talking with Dave Smith, VP of product marketing for Dullco Customer Relationship Management firm about his firm’s holistic communications strategy?”
No.
Some firms are doing well, it’s true, but it doesn’t that mean that they’re “bucking the credit crunch trend”. Honestly, your client got another round of funding. Good for them. It’s not a story though.
I look forward to interacting with the hot tech PR start-ups that Steve thinks will be born out of the current financial crisis. Who knows, maybe Bad PR will take on a few clients.
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Hang on, that post almost bordered on some sort of praise. I usually get taken a pop at, so am in unfamiliar territory here.
So yes, crap PRs trying to get clients into the news agenda with tenuous or irrelevant links is the work of fools. But any client has finite media appetite for its own news so needs to play the field. The trouble is a lot of PRs have little grasp of what they want the resulting story to look like in print, so offer useless drivel. Client management also needs to be stronger so expectations are set.
As for the prospects for entrepreneurial tech PRs then there are already a bunch of people looking well beyond the current sour slump to how client needs are changing. I really do think we'll see a raft of good people seting up on their own and good luck to them. The industry clearly needs this sort of thing to keep it in check.
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