In-house comms monkey in tale of woe shocker!

A while back I got a half decent pitch. A high profile speaker at a conference that my firm was organising was willing to put his name to a contributed article.
Now, for all the usual reasons we don’t usually take contributed articles. This one though would be different. The writer, as I said, would be quite senior (I know, I know. He wouldn’t really be writing it, but he’d be putting his name to it, and the readers don’t really care or know that the author would more than likely be some PR flunky or jobbing journo). Not only would the ‘writer’ be fairly senior, but his company is rather large in the industry I cover….and, what’s more, it’d be totally exclusive.

I supplied the PR with some thoughts on an angle, I gave him a nice comfy deadline (about a month) and I said the word count should be 1,500.

Naturally, I’d built some slack into the deadline, so when I go this missive three days after the date it didn’t matter too much – or so I thought:

Hi Finisher,
Please find attached the article. Sorry for being late, but we needed a little more time for validation.
Can you please check if the whole text seems correct for the publication, and then send the modified version back to us for validation?
Thank you
BPR

The fact that the email didn’t have an attachment should have started the old alarm bells a-ringin’. Sadly, I ignored my better judgement and decided to engage...

Leaving it a minute or two, I then emailed the PR to tell him of his schoolboy error. He apologised and then sent through another email with an attachment that contained a one page doc of about 330 words in length.

I read through the four paragraph-long note and deduced that while the PR had at least managed to attach a doc this time, it was clearly the wrong one.

The information before my eyes would not pass for an article in a primary school newsletter. It was a poorly written note describing what the executive would be talking about at a forthcoming conference. I was expecting a 1500 article ‘written’ by a very senior executive at one the world’s most widely recognised brands.

I sent an email that said:

Hi BRP
Thanks for this. I should be able to use it as part of a news story.
I take it you’re not going to submit a full length feature?
Finisher

Imagine my surprise, then, when I got this in return:

Hi Finisher,
The article is more than 1500 words long, do you still have space for some more text?
BPR

I opened the attachment again, was I wrong? Maybe the guy was trying to hypnotise me with barefaced lies. Perhaps my Word’s word count tool was on the blink. But no, 330 words worth of presentation notes sat before me on a single side of A4.

“I think you must have attached the wrong doc.” I said “The one that you sent me is 330 words!”

After a moment or two I got this:

Sorry Finisher i ment 1500 signs, my mistake...
1500 words, as you said in your previous mail, looks like a big article, what else could we talk about? (i hope that we aren' too close to the deadline to discuss about it)
BRP

I decided to throw this chap a bone. He was well past the original deadline, but clearly he had special needs.

Yes, I’m afraid I wanted 1500 words, not 1500 characters!
If you still wanted to write a longer piece, maybe you could talk about your …here I described something relevant to his company that would be extremely easy to write about …. You’ll have to move quickly, the deadline for the feature is the end of this week at the latest.

I admit, I should have dropped this as a lost cause much earlier, but I soldiered. I even attached the full transcript of an interview that I’d carried out with his firm’s CEO a week earlier, suggesting that maybe he could use it for ‘inspiration’.… the following day I got this:

Hi Finisher,

We finally decided to send the [original] article, plus a concise presentation of [the company I work for] (attached file).
Your suggestion is still too recent to deal with it, although it is an interesting article idea.

PS: Can you please find an attractive title to the article? And then send the final edit back to us, before publication?

Many thanks

BPR

The attached file containing a “concise presentation” of his firm was, in fact, a press release boilerplate pasted into Word.

I was gobsmacked. He seriously thought that adding his firm’s boilerplate info to the 330 words of notes already sent late would make for a compelling article. Not only that, he wanted me to think of an “attractive” headline AND, get this, send it back so they could check it.

Jeeeeeeeee-zuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's party time

The clocks have fallen back, the nights are drawing in, the goose is getting fat. It can mean only one thing. The round of Christmas press parties is almost upon us.

For the past few years I haven't really bothered with press parties, the allure of free booze wore off (I know, unbelievable - I remember, as a young whipper snapper, I'd go to every party I could and stay to the bitter end, drinking everything in sight. My then editor said I'd get bored, I said "never". She was right). Still, this year, what with the credit crunch n'all I might get myself along to a few.

One agency is having its pre-Xmas party at some pretentious Soho venue soon. The suggested dress code is "stylish and elegant".

I dunno, maybe tech press parties have changed a bit during my years out in the cold. Perhaps tech hacks no longer turn up wearing old jumpers carrying free satchels from conferences. Maybe they don't stuff their faces with canapes and get drunk guzzling down as much bottled lager as they can before making what can only be described as hopelessly ill-judged passes at girls that are only talking to them because they have to.

I'm going to have to carry out a full review of my wardrobe if I want to be stylish and elegant at this year's yuletide bashes.

Better get myself off to Primark for a new jumper.

....er, know your market

Research is important right?

I'm not going to go off on one here about the importance of doing research. Principally, because the importance of carrying out research is so blindingly obvious that I cannot even be arsed to explain why.

There exists, in the world of communications, the abbreviation FMC. It stands for fixed mobile convergence. I'm not going to explain what it means or what the issues are, because what follows is so laughably under-researched, there is no need.

-----Original Message-----
From: bad.pr@noresearch.pr
Sent: 24 October 2008 15:25
To: the, Finisher
Subject: Find your own expert with FMC

Find your own expert with FMC

Farming Media Centre, launched this week by the Guild of Agricultural Journalists, enables journalists, editors and PR agencies to 'pick the brains' of the experts, improving understanding and reliability when agriculture and food issues are making headlines.

Its ultimate objective is to promote, defend and ensure accuracy in reporting views, opinions and facts on agricultural topics, by making experts and their knowledge easily available to anyone in the media.

There then followed a lengthy email about the importance of the Farming Media Centre.

What did this PR do? Did she type FMC into Google and decide that sending this press release to a telecoms journalist was a good idea because 'hey, FMC is relevant to telecoms'.

What exactly was the thought process?

Was there a thought process?

Just send the f*cking press release

Calling to tell a journalist you'll be sending them a press release is only ever irritating. Yet it's common, it's all too common, and it's totally f*cking pointless. It does not mean that when the journo sees the press release that they're more likely to notice it among the millions of others, it means they know they don't even have to look at it in the preview window.

As I type these words, minutes after putting the phone down, the time is 11:34. Apparently, an obscure IT company is going to be issuing a press release at 1pm folks. Yep, 1pm the news will break!!!!

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE.

That's right, in about an hour and a half an obscure IT firm will release a press release unto the world at large......

The call I took was offering me a peak into the future. Jeesh, wow, no need for a crystal ball either. The PR was offering me 90 minutes of advance warning.

I work on a magazine. I know the printers and distributors can manage a quick turnaround when pushed, but to be totally honest, there's not much chance that I'd get the 'news' out into the world before 1pm today, so this particular generous offer wasn't especially exciting.

Identity issues

I’ve ranted about this before, and it’s bound to happen again, so it won't be the last time. Still, better out than in.

I have a very simple name to spell. It’s not an uncommon name, but there are a couple of ways of spelling it.

One PR I know regularly uses an alternative version of the spelling. To be honest, I don’t really give a toss. In fact, now I think it’s quite funny when she uses the alternative spelling. I always sign off using the spelling my parents chose all those years ago, and she always greets me the other spelling. I think she’s probably got a friend or relative that uses the alternative spelling, because she always uses it, even though my email address and autosignature kind of gives the name game away. Thing is, she’s actually really rather helpful. So all her Good PR outweighs this one piece of Bad PR.

This morning though, I got a message from a PR, and he’d used a completely wrong name. I’ve had this before with mail merges gone bad, but this was different. This guy has written to me three times with three different wrong names.

Making matters worse, I actually initiated the email chat, using my real name, so he’s seen and responded to three emails from me, each with the real name in the sender box and each with my real name at the bottom, and on each occasion he’s used completely the wrong name in response. Not only that, the wrong names don’t even match each other!

Once, twice, three times a moron.

Pleading poverty

It's Blog Action Day today, it happens every year (apparently) bloggers are encouraged to write about a given subject, this year it's poverty.

With that in mind, here we go, poverty and Bad PR.

The global financial meltdown is dominating the majority of the UK's media channels, yet most of the people worrying about rising inflation, soaring unemployment and falling house prices know nothing about poverty. Real, actual, poverty.

I look around me day to day and see no real evidence of depression. Well, not economic depression anyway. Like most people in this country I'm incredibly lucky. Lucky to be living in one of the wealthiest places on earth. Where, given a small amount of effort, poverty can be overcome. Poverty, for me and the vast majority of people in Britain, simply isn't an issue.

That said, when I got an email inviting me to a Halloween press party earlier, I nearly spat out my ethically sourced, fair trade tea.

The agency hosting the party are charging journalists £10 to attend.

Poor impoverished journalists are being asked to pay for beer, pizza and a celebrity quiz master. Does Gordon Brown know about this?

It's all going to a good cause apparently - but even so, ten quid to go to a press party!!!! Don't they know there's a bleedin' credit crunch happening?

Charity begins at home so the saying goes, which is exactly where I'll be when that party happens.

bah humbug

From Bad PR to Worse PR

A classic Bad PR tactic, and one already documented on this site, is to ring up journo and check whether he/she has received the press release sent a couple of weeks ago or whenever it was. It’s wrong and pointless. No need to explain further.

Yet I’ve just had a call from a hapless PR that ‘develops’ this classic bad move into something even more horrendous, more inept.

Here’s a rough transcript of the call, from memory:

Bad PR (older, authoritative voice): Sorry to disturb you, but have you received an invitation from Bad PR regarding the XYZ* event in London?

Me (lying): I don’t recall it.

Bad PR: It was sent last week. It’s called the XYZ event and we wondered whether you would like to come.

Me: Can you tell me what it’s about and I’ll see if it’s relevant to what I’m doing?

Bad PR (Flustered): Er, I don’t know. It’s in the email. Didn’t you get it? Let me see…

Me (interrupting, out of sympathy): It’s just that I work in a very specific part of the industry and…

Bad PR (interrupting, out of relief): Ah here it is. (Sound of rattling paper, then continues in an undisguised reading voice). The XYZ event is about the development of next generation of networks and how companies can take advantage of state-of-the-art developments in this field. There will be senior executives…

Bad PR continued to rattle on, the reading becoming even faster and by doing so rendering the words even more meaningless (if that were possible).

She would have continued for a good few minutes, I’m sure, had I not interrupted with a weary “OK” to call a halt to the monologue. The Bad PR then gave a little giggle (all semblance of authority now lost) and a phew-like “Did you get all that, then?”

I told Bad PR I wouldn’t be attending, briefly saying it wasn't relevant. I thought that would be the end of it, with Bad PR only too willing to hang up after such a disastrous call.

But you can’t keep a good Bad PR down. “Do you know of any other colleagues who you could nominate to attend in your place?” Bad PR asked, the tone of a ‘well-seasoned PR campaigner’ returning to her voice.

You couldn’t make it up.


*The only thing made up

The holiday romance

I went on a three-night junket recently. Top stuff; great venue, once-in-a-lifetime activities, good food, minimal work. Straight out of the old school, it was. It was like a short holiday, with an even shorter briefing attached. And the briefing was interesting.

You can imagine, then, that I was in a pretty good mood throughout. This good mood brought with it a relaxed open-mindedness and I struck up a conversational friendship with one of the host PRs. It turns out we had many similar tastes. We liked the same music, the same sports, we shared a fondness for the same writers. The cultural references flowed in volume like the wine and the laughter. Perhaps something might have happened, were it not for the fact that we both have girlfriends and, at six foot three, he was too tall for me.

But here’s the thing: When we got to the airport – the two of us were on the same flight home – the relationship began to change. Plucked out of the bubble of the press trip, where life was easy, free and luxurious, reality began to kick in. The first sign was just after check-in. As we approached security, I already had my book in mind. At the gates he said:

“Are you going through now?”
“Yes,” I replied, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at the thought of 90 minutes of small talk as we waited to board.
“I think I’m just going to get something to eat here before I go through,” he said.

I felt a curious contradiction germinate inside me. On the one hand I was pleased to be able to spend some time on my own. The lucky escape, right? On the other, clearly so was he! What’s wrong with spending time with me? Suit yourself, I thought.

On the plane, the enjoyment of a new acquaintance was fading like a week-old tan. We sat in stony silence, occasionally offering one another the bare minimum of conversation that politeness requires. And at the baggage hall back home it was time for goodbye.

His bag came out first. He waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot, clearly anxious to leave. “God, just go, will you?” I was thinking to myself. “You don’t need to stick around. I don’t want anything more from this, I’d rather just leave it as a pleasant memory.” But he kept waiting, dutifully. In the end I said:

“Look, why don’t you just go. My bag seems to be taking a little while.”
“No, no,” he said. “I can’t do that, I’ll wait.”

A minute passed.

“Erm, I think I might just…” he said.
“No, that’s fine, off you go. I’ll probably be here all day,”
“I’ll email you in the week. Y’know, just to catch up,” he said, shouldering his bag and offering his hand.
“Ok, enjoy the weekend,” I said, relieved and disappointed all at once.

He never emailed me. They never do.

Good PR

There's not been much Bad PR this week. I even seem to have received less spam.

The global financial meltdown has dominated events of course, although there have been some excellent 'and finally' stories - notably the policeman who helped deliver a baby.

My fears regarding the economy have not been borne out, hardly any PRs have so far bothered to jump onto the credit crunch bandwagon. I guess being associated with The End of The World As We Know It is just a jump too far, even if you can put a positive spin on things.

In fact, this week my experience in PR Land has been almost entirely positive.

Even the weather forecast is looking nice for the weekend.

Something is about to go seriously wrong.....

You sunk my battleship

Followers of this blog will know by now that I'm a telco journo. Our readers are the mobile network operators.

That means I want to be sent news, analysis, research and opinion that mobile network operators will be interested in.

I do not want to be sent a pitch detailing how the US Navy has signed a contract with some semi-conductor firm for the development of next-generation gallium arsenide amplifiers.

Even if, and I want to make this perfectly clear, the 'news' comes complete with a photo of a war ship.

You must be JoeKinn Ear!!!!

Today's sport pages have been filled with tales of Joe Kinnear, newly installed interim manager of Newcastle Football Club and latest owner of the most poisoned chalice in Britain, bar Gary Glitter's new PR man.

Joe let loose with a toxic tirade of obscene abuse at his weekly press conference with national and local journalists. Transcripts show his opening salvo as follows:

JK: Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror's north-east football writer]?

SB: Me.

JK: You're a cunt.

SB: Thank you.

The barbed exchanges continue for a while before the Newcastle press officer feels inclined to utter the immortal line - "What has been said in here is off the record and doesn't go outside".

Kinnear does not seem bothered about what is on or off the record, imploring journalists to "write what you like" and that it "makes no difference to me".

However, as the press conference degenerates further, the press officer steps in again.

Press officer: Let's get on to football. Let's have an agreement that everything said so far, if anyone has got their tapes on, it's wiped off and we're not discussing it.

Journalist: But that's what Joe has said he thinks of us.

Press Officer: Come on, let's go football.

Journalist: What are your plans for training in the next three days? How's the training going?

JK: It's going very well. No problems at all.

Journalist: Enjoyed getting back in the swing of things?

JK: Absolutely. I've loved every moment of it.

Now this must be a PR's nightmare, when their charge goes off on a foul-mouthed and personally abusive tirade and, given an opportunity to retract his words, even apologise, digs his obscene heels in further. It is enough to make you realise why a PR in that position would insist on quote checks and approval, lest the abuse is made public.

However, this is an exceptional circumstance with a man (Joe Kinnear) clearly under enormous stress and taking this out on the assembled journalists. It is not some unexciting, back-office, operations guy talking guardedly about transaction costs analysis and workflow efficiencies. So don't ask to see the quotes in advance. You were on the call, remember? You were the one making heavy breathing noises and tapping on your keyboard while we were trying to have a conversation. Remember now? And do you remember your client calling me a cunt? No? That's because he didn't. In fact he didn't say much at all.

These incessant quote checking demands have to stop. On occasion I have sent the PR's the whole transcript of the conversation, including the opening pleasantries concerning the weather. But while this is pleasingly irritating for the PRs it also means more work for me. On other occasions I have made stuff up just to see if they are actually checking the quotes but this does my reputation no good at all. And on other occasions I have genuinely forgotten and the quotes have gone in as is. And, believe it or not, the world kept turning, no-one lost their job and no-one got sued for defamation.

Now and again an interviewee will say something genuinely interesting, spontaneous and slightly controversial. The end of the conversation comes and you are praying there will be no quote request. You're getting to the goodbyes, you're almost out of there when it comes...."Can we see the quotes before it goes to press?" Bah. I do what I'm told and back come the quotes with all the life, interest and controversy red-penned to death. Why oh why oh why do I bother?

The lingering smell of Bad PR

This week in the exciting world of cellular comms, news broke that the Finnish mobile handset giant Nokia is planning to turn its back on corporate push mobile email – for anyone reading this who is already dozing off, this post will get around to Bad PR shortly.

I wrote a feature, oooh bloomin’ ages ago now, 2005 in fact, about mobile email. I spoke with some operators, analysts and a number of vendors in the space. However, I didn’t speak with everyone. I simply haven’t got the time, y’see.

So, after the magazine went to press, imagine my surprise when the PR of a mobile email vendor phoned me to angrily complain that I hadn’t spoken to his client.

How could I be so stupid as to not talk to his client? His client was the leading player in the space, did I not research the feature at all? I spoke with some of his client’s rivals, it’s not fair. What was I going to do to make amends? Maybe feature an executive interview with his client in the next issue? Maybe let his client write a piece for inclusion, setting me straight on one or two points?

Maybe?

Or, how about, maybe jotting down the name and number of the PR and his firm and vowing never to pick up the phone when he called or open his emails again?

Yes, yes, maybe I’d do that instead.

For the record, the PR’s client was bought up by Nokia, who this week effectively put the business out to pasture, then announced (almost in the same breath) that it would be buying another consumer mobile email firm… and guess what kids? It’s only one of the mobile email firms that I did interview for the piece.

Now, I’m not claiming my feature had any real impact on the outcome of the PR’s client disappearing off the face of the earth, while a rival’s mobile email product is set to soon appear on the terminals of the number one handset manufacturer in the world.

To be honest, I don’t remember why I spoke with one of the firms and not the other, I guess it was just pot luck. I do, however, remember very clearly the telephone conversation that the PR and I shared. It has a lasting effect calling me up to tell me that I’m not doing my job properly. I’ve got a very understanding boss who tells me that every day thanks.

The real tragedy of the banking crisis

The stricken state of the global banking system has many grave implications but by far the most serious is the sudden deluge of so-called experts who are pimped around indiscrimnately by thoughtless PRs. A typical solicitation would be Dr (aren't they always doctors) x of Acme Software is available for comment on how the banking crisis could have been avoided (as could the hurricanes in the Carribean, earthquakes in China, the assasination of Martin Luther King and the English Civil War) if people had used his document management software.

I've got plenty of those in the last week but the best so far has to be the following (not the bit about 'gap years'):

Goodmorning,
Dr. Peter Slowe has a PhD in Economic Geography from Oxford University and is the former Chairman of the Labour Finance and Industry Group. He is the founder of Projects Abroad, the largest commercial gap year organisation in the UK or the United States.

If you would like comment regarding the banking crisis from Dr Slowe, please get in touch.

Many Thanks
XXXXX XXXXXXXX

Just exactly what kind of insight can I expect from the Doc who is no doubt a learned man with incisive and thought-provoking opinions? I would have thought working in a bank may have helped...

'Bolluk's

This more bad commissioning than bad PR, however we are yet to set up BadCommissioning.com so this will have to do.

Now as a freelancer I'm generally happy to recieve emails offering an opportunity to write - particularly if it's a new magazine, however, this particular request was missing a few vital ingredients.

From: Tembo Caloglu
To: xxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2008 9:25 AM
Subject: Contribution to 'Bolluk'


Hello, XXX,
Greetings, and I hope all is well with you. This is Tembo Caloglu, editor of 'Bolluk'. We were wondering whether you might like to write a small piece for us, some informed thoughts on a matter of moment in Turkey, only two or three pars, would not take you long (longer of course, if you so desired). Or maybe there is something that you never had published, such as poetry or literary criticism. We couldn't pay you for this, and you would not get a by-line (not our policy), but you could write what you liked, within reason. Do let us know,
Best regards,
Tembo Caloglu.

Now then, let's start from the beginning. Who is Tembo Caloglu? And is his magazine really called 'Bolluk'? Why does he think I know anything about Turkish current affairs? And just what kind of a publication would be willing to include my unpublished sixth form poetry?

The best bit though is his positively seductive pay-terms. No money and no by-line but I can write what I want... within reason. I've got a feeling there may be a two word article on its way to Tembo very soon.