The Dupe

This is so school boy, it feels wrong of me to impart it as knowledge. But some ruthless PRs will lie in order to get a journalist in front of a client. One PR called me with news that her client – perhaps the dullest of all the dull industry steering group organisations – had some news. I went across town to the PR HQ, I was sat down in front of a panel of telecoms engineers. The panel of engineers were almost as non-plussed as I as to why he I there. There was no news, this was to be a ‘catch up’. Not only was it a massive waste of time. It was also pretty embarrassing.

Sadly, the agency in question hasn’t learnt. A few weeks ago, another colleague of mine announced he was off to see the same organisation. Unfortunately, for said colleague he hadn’t been warned in time about my pointless cross town mission. He returned about three hours later with the same sorry tale.

There is about as much chance of me, the Bull, our colleague or anyone else we talk to meeting up with that organisation as there is of me, the Bull, our colleague or anyone else we talk to deciding that ‘yes, maybe a trip to South Wales on a Friday afternoon to see a phone recycling plant is a good idea’.

I hope I'm in Business Class

Whenever a journo gets a press invite it is a moderately exciting event. After all it is better to turn something down than to have never been invited in the first place. and now and again, it may even be an invite worth accepting - such as a free trip to Bangkok.

But by far the most irritating invite is the utterly pointless one, such as below:

The XXXX company would like to invite you and your colleagues to visit its booth at the exhibition that will take place within the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 on July 7-10, 2008 in............Houston, TX, US.

Texas??? I've been invited to Texas?? Cool. Only I've scoured the email from top to bottom and still can't find my flight itinerary or hotel details. And do they know I'm a vegetarian? And how mnay colleagues shall I bring? And how will they be able to sort all of this out considering the fact that ... THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW MY FECKING NAME!!!

Still at least they've followed up the invitation with some info about their latest product and given it the inspiring but soul-bearingly honest title of

Press-release

24 June 2008, XXXXX -- The XXX company is going to participate in the exhibition that will take place within the XXXXX Conference 2008 on July 7-10, 2008 in Houston, TX, US. Its latest advanced management solution for creating various reports on the company's IT infrastructure will be presented there.

Links

Along the lines of yesterday's Bad PR I just got this email:

Press Release: ProcServe Launches a Custom Built Electronic Marketplace for NHS

Media Contact:
Firstname Surname
T: +44(0)20 XXXX XXXX
E: Bad.PR@procserve.com
Click here to read further...

No name at the top, a PR I've never heard of from a company I've never heard of punting something completely irrelevant to my publication and a meaningless looking hypertext link to a story. Bad PR.

Attachments

There is no beginning, no middle and defintiely no end to Bad PR. With that in mind, let's get the ball rolling with this piece of Bad PR:

I just received an email from someone I've never heard of saying:

Please find attached the latest press release from mimoOn, mO0608

mimoOn expands team with wireless experts from Nokia’s research center

There followed the PR's name, her company's name and its address.

Does this person seriously think anyone is going to bother opening an attachment without any other detail?