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December 06, 2005
Exposing PR flunkies
The Publicity Hound (PR expert Joan Stewart) is out to publicly expose "the PR flunkies."
She writes:
One of the worst ways that PR agencies rip off their clients is by forcing new hires to make those idiot phone calls to journalists asking questions like “I’m just calling to see if you got my news release and if you know when it will be printed?”
These calls infuriate the reporters. The company mentioned in the news release looks bad. The agency comes across as naive and clueless. And the poor client gets billed an hourly rate for all this foolishness... maybe together we can shame enough agencies into ending this ridiculous and nonproductive practice.
Excellent PR can be a vital ingredient to word of mouth. The PR busy-work Joan describes is word of mouth anti-matter.
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As a former journalist and former PR agency guy, I can doubly-relate to this. In a channel as important and high-leverage as PR, relationships are critical. But most agency account executives don't have the relationships they need with a majority of reporters for each client, so the trick becomes context. How do you get the right story, or the right angle, to the right reporter at the right time? Gaining trust and credibility with reporters, even the best ones at the top publications, isn't hard. It just takes the right approach.
I spent my first years in PR in media relations and let me tell you, I hated it. There is nothing worse than having the job of trying to reach all of these journalists and then write a call report for the client that says "left a message Monday, left a message Tuesday, left a message Wednesday" so that you can at least show you made the effort. And the rate I was billed at was really high considering what I was doing. I appreciate Joan's post.
It should be noted, too, that some client firms expect, perhaps demand, carpet-bombing techniques that Joan describes.
When PR starts sounding more like telemarketing than... well, PR, you know you've just about hit rock bottom.
ABSOLUTELY! One of many ills in the PR zone. Where's the innovation? Where's the non-traditional thinking?
