Search your heart, you know it to be true

Apologies for not posting in... oooh ages. I thought it prudent under recent circumstances. I'm almost certainly setting myself up for a fall.... I've been banging on about Bad PR all this time and now I'm moving over to the dark side....a traitor to the noble call of hackery? I hope not, more a friend on the other side of the fence. That rare breed, the tame PR.

However, I think I should resign from all Bad PR duties and leave posting to the Escapist, Necromancer, Bull and Depress Release.

Many have made the switch from hack to flack and back. I sincerely hope to not be among that number.

I will scan this blog from time to time. Particularly during the hour immediately after I've pitched my former colleagues the latest paradign shifting Widget solution from Bore Inc.

It's been emotional....

Communication breakdown

I got a letter today. It's always nice to get letters. They seem so much more personal than nasty old emails. Not only that, it came all the way from Germany!

Cool, I love German stuff. Well, I love fancy German cars and lovely German beers. And almost every single German I've ever met has been really nice.

Then, moments later while basking in the warm glow of all things tasteful and Teutonic, I noticed that I had another letter.

WOW! Two letters in one day. And neither of them a bill!

And, coincidentally, it came all the way from Germany too judging by the post mark.

Hang on....they're clearly both from the same source...and, what's this? Yes, it's yet another letter, it's also clearly from the same German tech firm...

Blimey, they must really want to get in touch with me.

It came as no surprise to find that the contents of each envelope were identical. They were invitations to a party.

OK, not so bad, I shouldn't really grumble about being invited to a party. Especially a party at which there was a good chance I'd get to meet even more nice Germans.

Now then, where's the email address for me to reply?

....oh, there isn't one, there's a slip of paper that I need to fill out and fax back.

Fax back!

This, from a firm that professes to be in the communications business, presumably sent by someone who works in a communications profession.

I thought Germans were supposed to be efficient.

Flattering to deceive

We all love a bit of flattery. But journalists, whose fragile ego should be massaged more lovingly than a wagyu cow, love flattery more than anyone else.

Journalism is a selfish profession. Whether it attracts selfish people or turns people selfish is up for debate. Although, frankly, it's a bit of pointless debate since the end result is the same.

PRs will tailor their communications to pander to the fragile egos of their grumpy target audience. It's all part of the media relations game. And long may it continue.

So imagine how impressed I was when I received this message:

Dear Finisher

We've been following your impressive coverage of the emerging communications, wireless and telecom markets for awhile. Can we have five minutes of your time? We're conducting a survey of the most prominent journalists and bloggers who cover the VoIP market and we'd love your input.

It's really brief. And, in return for your trouble, we'll give you an advance look at the survey results, which will almost certainly make for an interesting jumping-off point for an article or blog.

Cool. Looks like Good PR to me. I know it's probably lies, but hey, I'm a sucker for a bit of flattery, also they're offering up an instant easy News. A cunning media audit, if ever I did see one.

Now imagine how impressed I was when the Escapist said he'd just received this email:

Dear Escapist

We've been following your impressive coverage of the emerging communications, wireless and telecom markets for awhile. Can we have five minutes of your time? We're conducting a survey of the most prominent journalists and bloggers who cover the VoIP market and we'd love your input.

It's really brief. And, in return for your trouble, we'll give you an advance look at the survey results, which will almost certainly make for an interesting jumping-off point for an article or blog.

Hmmm, less impressed....

You can probably imagine how impressed I was when the Necromancer said he'd just received exactly the same flannel about his "impressive coverage".

If you're going to engage your flattery guns, you should take careful aim. This Bad PR is more blunderbuss than sniper rifle.

Anyone for coffee?

Anyone who works in telco, more specifically mobile comms, will refer to this time of year as "that time of year again". It's code among the cellco brethren, nothing more needs to be said. Sometimes the phrase is accompanied by a slight sigh of resignation.

The industry's biggest trade show happens annually in February, most (honest) people approach the show with a mixture of fear and trepidation. You have to be there, but you don't want to. Like root canal surgery without the benefits.

There is one upside to the Mobile World Congress, it usually overlaps Valentine's Day, thus giving all who attend an instant get of jail free card with the missus. Sadly, this year, not even that silver lining exists.

Like counting the rings of a fallen tree to assess its age, you can tell how many shows someone has been to by the number of deep lines furrowed across his brow. The show is the biggest of its kind for the cellular industry. Effectively, a small town consisting of tech vendors will camp in Barcelona for a week. It's like Glastonbury, only the toilets are worse.

The show, like all trade shows, is billed as a fantastic networking opportunity. Everyone will be there. It's for precisely this reason that the show is an absolute nightmare for networking. Everyone runs around from meeting to meeting, usually hungover and desperately wanting not to be there. Hands are shook, faces clocked, and names forgotten almost as soon as they're given, business cards are stuffed into bags to be left in your hotel room when you check out vowing to never come again.

Getting PR right at the show is a challenge, getting it wrong is all too common. All good fodder for Bad PR.

One simple thing you can do to improve your chances of getting journos in front of your client is host your meeting at a sensible time. The trouble is, time is a precious commodity at the show...which could be the reason that one American tech giant has decided to hold its press briefing at 7am.

Seven. A. M.

Not only that, it's the day after the Nokia party.

Maybe they're hoping to catch people on their way home. The post-club Nokia crowd, all glow sticks and whistles. I doubt it though, it's more likely that this has been a From High command delivered by a Chino slacked, Blackberry holstered, guy called Chuck, who knows nothing about how European journalists operate.

When in Barcelona do as the Catalans do Chuck, get up at a normal time, have a productive morning by all means, but the only thing happening at 7am should be your arm reaching over to press snooze button on your alarm. Get yourself a nice long lunch booked, have a nap in the afternoon, then pootle about for a bit pretending to work before decamping to the bar for a few beers. Have a nice dinner to make up for all the ham and cheese sandwiches you've eaten during the day, then spend the rest of the night drinking Coke mixed with red wine. Be careful on your way home walking up La Rambla, that girl approaching you is more interested in the contents of your wallet than the contents of your pants.

Do not, under any circumstances, organize a dull sounding meeting at 7am the day after a big party (or any other day, if we're being honest) no one will come.

Why have a dog and bark yourself?

It might come as a surprise to readers of this blog, but I have a lot of sympathy for PRs. It's a tough job, pleasing your clients while pleasing journalists is an unenviable task. An impossible mission at times. Though, at other times it's very f*cking easy, which is why I rant here....

Like most magazines, we're not news led, by the time we've been printed and distributed the multitude of daily web news services will have covered the news and consigned it to the waste bin of their archives.

We do, however, re-produce some of the previous month's bigger stories as briefs, adding a bit of value where possible. The briefs pages by their nature include quite a few different stories, often accompanied by the odd photo.

We always do the briefs pages last, so the news is as up to date as possible, which means we need a quick turnaround. So when I send a message off to a press@company.com media relations contact, requesting a photo, there's a much better chance that a photo will get published if I get sent one back. If, on the other hand, I get sent a link to an online repository, where I need to register - except I can't because the site is always down - there is a much greater chance that I'll write it off and get on with something else.

The thing is, if I ask a PR for a photo, they shouldn't really tell me to go and get it myself. I know it sounds lazy, but hey, I'm busy and part of the PRs role is serving the journo while serving the client. If I get asked to get something myself, I won't. And then nobody wins. It's not like I'm biting my nose off to spite my face, I'll just print the photo that the PR who could be arsed has sent in.

Lest we forget

Today is Remembrance Day. Here is how I have variously seen it marked so far:

1. A mass brawl involving some 40 youths in school uniform outside Balham Station this morning. Several were screaming knife-based threats and one was trying to find a glass bottle to hit somebody with. Kids, eh?
2. A big traffic jam at Parliament Square because Whitehall was closed. I climbed off my bike in a huff, saying under my breath: “what the f*ck have they shut the bloody roa… Oh.”
3. An even greater volume of sanctimonious, ill thought-out old claptrap on the BBC’s ‘have your say’ section than usual.
4. A press release for a new WWII first person shoot-em-up computer game that contained the following paragraph:

The fate of the Pacific hangs in the balance. The Empire of Japan has carried out a surprise offensive on Pearl Harbor [sic] and much of the US fleet deployed in the area has been destroyed. While the US forces have successfully repelled ensuing attacks from the Japanese fleet and secured a critical victory at the Battle of Midway, the outcome of the war is far from certain. Only determination and skills will lead to ultimate victory. Relive some of the grandest and most critical naval battles of recent history and for the first time, choose to lead your fleet to a completely different ending to the war. With both strategy and action at your command truly anticipate your opponent’s every move and turn the tide of war.

Now is it me, or is this some poor timing? Regardless of whether you think that war is over glamorised by the pomp and circumstance of an occasion like Remembrance Day – or whether you’re one of those who jumps to their feet in salute whenever they hear the national anthem – you’ll probably agree that wars cost lots of lives and lots of dead people is not really a good thing. Unless they’re all reality TV contestants.

So to send out a press release today for a game that enables people to re-enact actual, historical scenes of mass death, in what it is presumably an impressively realistic rendering, seems just a touch insensitive.

Don’t get me wrong, I like computer games – although I favour the more futuristic alien ones, largely because imaginary weapons are a lot more fun than 60 yr-old real ones. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the game per se. I just think it’s a bit stupid to send out the paragraph above because some people, like me, will actually have read it during the two minutes’ silence.

I just really hope it was accidental, and not a deliberate attempt to cash in on some form of aggressive national fervour that is thought to arise every Remembrance Day at the sight of lots of old men struggling down Whitehall who, on any other day of the year – and minus their medals, probably wouldn’t be given a seat on the tube by any commuter in London.

Give it the finger

Sometimes I feel a twang of pity for the poor PR who has the unenviable job of promoting the unpromotable. It passes quickly though, because I know they must have pitched for and won that business with the promise of targeted, innovative, marketing.

Sometimes though, when a product or service that is patently terrible comes along, maybe the PR would have been better off not pitching for that business, because the associative reputational hit that the PR takes will be a lot more damaging than the financial reward.

I know there’s an economic downturn at the moment, I know we all have to put food on the table, but really, sometimes PRs would benefit from being a bit more picky when it comes to client selection.

Take, for example, this recent pitch – the Etre Touchy glove.

Picture the scene:

Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne, looking smug and self-satisfied in equal measure, are sitting down in a gloomy loft space. Next to them Theo Paphitis grins manically at a small pile of bank notes to his right, Deborah Meaden sucks on a lemon in order to induce her Look Of Scorn™, while James Caan strokes his beard looking every inch the archetypal Bond villain.

A budding entrepreneur bounds up the spiral staircase.

“Good afternoon Dragons,” he says, “are you constantly frustrated that normal pairs of gloves keep your hands warm and dry, yet they aren’t compatible with modern touch-screen devices, which only respond to skin-on-screen contact?”

The Dragons look on, their early interest already morphing into bewilderment. “Do you find yourself cursing the good Lord above because their bulkiness and general lack of sensitivity also leads to “fat-fingering” misery when using the tiny keypads of other mobile devices?” our entrepreneur soldiers on.

“I’m out,” barks Bannatyne. “Me too,” shouts Paphitis.

Undaunted, the entrepreneur takes out his ‘invention’ and proceeds to place it on his hand. It’s a woolly glove, with the tip of the index finger and thumb missing. “Dragons, I give you the Etre Touchy gloves. They’re a stylish, fun and practical way to keep your hands warm and dry while using mobile phones, portable games systems, music players and other electronic devices,” he says, making no attempt whatsoever to hide the fact that he’s reading directly from a press release.

“Tell me,” starts Meadon, “do you own the patent?”

“…erm,” sputters the entrepreneur.

“I know a thing or two about technology,” says Jones interrupting the entrepreneur, “and I have to say, I’ve never seen anything quite like the Etre Touchy. I’m out.”

“Me too,” shouts Meadon.

Caan, smiling, asks: “Did you ever work as a market trader?”

“Well, like all great ideas, Etre Touchy gloves began life as a sketch on the back of a napkin over a cup of coffee…” starts the entrepreneur, visibly questioning the veracity of that last statement, he frowns and says: “They’re only £14.99. Come on, they’d make an hilariously ironic Christmas gift for that irritating gadget freak uncle of yours who owns an iPhone.”

“OK,” says Caan, “you’ve got yourself a deal.

In-house comms monkey in tale of woe shocker II – the agency strikes back

Like all sequels this story contains elements of last outing.

I’m the hero, obviously…

The cast of villains is different, however, their actions – while not exactly the same as those that went before – are hauntingly familiar.

Over one month ago I met with a company that appeared to be doing something a bit different, interesting even. At the close of the meeting, I suggested that we had an opening for a contributed article.

This should be music to the ears of any right thinking PR man. It’s free publicity, where you get to write about your favourite subject.

Indeed, the PR man seemed pretty enthusiastic about the offer.

I think I left it a week and then emailed and informed them that I was serious, they really could submit something, but I’d need it by the end of the month.

They were still happy and, having been told the word count, said that they’d be handing the job over to their PR agency.

About a week before deadline, I emailed the agency to see how things were coming along. They asked for more time. Fortunately, I’d built in some slack. The original deadline had been the last Friday of the month, I gave the agency the weekend, plus a day. So Tuesday…..now well over one month after the first meeting and offer of contrib..

>> Hi Finisher: We will definitely have the article to you by Nov. 4th.
>>
>> Thanks again.
>>

Was the response of the agency. A day or two later, the PR emailed again if they could possibly reduce the word count from 1500 to 1000.

….er…so let me get this straight, you’ve had the best part of a month to write 1500 words about your client, and now a few days before the deadline you’re telling me that you can only realistically write 1000 words.

F*ck me, I could write the extra 500 words for them during my lunch hour if they bunged me a tenner. I didn’t say this of course. I said, “well, the word count is 1500 because we need to fill a page, 1000 words won’t fill a page’” – here I compromised – “how about 1250 and maybe you’ve got a nice image or two?” (…the story would genuinely benefit from a nice image or two).

Then….radio and email silence…nothing…..nothing for days…

Hmmm, maybe my insistence upon writing another 250 words over the 500 less than originally agreed word count has stumped him….maybe I was supposed to just say ‘OK send in a thousand words and we’ll whack in a SuDoku to fill the white space….’

On the afternoon of Nov 4th (the new deadline day I’d emailed the agency) – I got this response….

Hi Finisher: The Company’s Director of Marketing (copied on this email) is responsible for sending the final article to you. He understands the deadline is today.

Best regards,

Agency Bad PR

The director of marketing didn’t send me anything.

The morning of the day after deadline day I emailed the director of marketing asking for the feature…

I got nothing….no response…stitched up….now I had a big page to fill….two days after the deadline….

I scrambled around and managed to find something extra to fill the space…the designer laid it out, I proofed it and then signed it off, job done, (over the past week I have coordinated, edited, proofed and signed off 32, 1500 word features from a variety of sources….)

A day after all this, I got an email from the internal marketing guy asking for a further 24 hours to get his piece in…

So, to recap – the original meeting happened 44 days ago. In that time, they’ve been unable to cobble together 1500 words about themselves. That’s 34 words per day guys….

This post comes in at a little over 700 words and it took me about five minutes to write. Surely 44 days is long enough to write a featurette about yourself????

I am now more than slightly sceptical about the prospects of this particular company delivering on their promises of bringing some really high end, expensive and complicated technology projects in on budget or on time.

Poor photos and bad headlines, nuff said

Have a look at that chap over there on the right…He's the CEO of an obscure IT firm, I'm sure he's a lovely bloke, he's probably got his own parking spot at the business park and everything, but it's not a great photo is it?

You'd struggle to find the artistic merit in that photo. Well, you would unless you're a fan of those old-skool school photos, you know the ones? Your gran's mantelpiece is probably furnished with one of you wearing an over-sized blazer, grinning away underneath an unfortunate thatch of 1970s haircut.

Now, have a look at this headline:

Technobogey’s Producto2™ Double-Chip XYZ Solution Achieves Industry-first Milestone with WhyBother ABC Certification

I won't bother reproducing the full PR, there's no need. The headline really does say it all.

Would you run the story?

Probably not.

Assuming you were really desperate for news in briefs though and had to run the story, would you run that photo next to it?

No, neither would I.

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.

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.