Is the role of the PR to waste as much of a journalist’s time as possible in the relentless pursuit of profits?
Before you start flaming the hell out of me, take a moment to read this entry in its entirety and hopefully you will share at least some of my sentiment.
The other week the team was invited to a vendor briefing in which representatives from the vendor spoke for about an hour about how wonderful the company’s technology and products are. Also in the meeting was the requisite PR chick, all pretty standard stuff.
The interesting thing about this particular briefing was that no sooner had it ended had I received an e-mail from the PR with the most extraordinary proposition – a questionnaire on the relevance of the meeting. I kid you not.
Here’s a summary of the e-mail and attached questionnaire, and gedda.info’s interpretation of the content. In the interests of human decency, the identity of all those involved will remain anonymous.
Let’s begin with the e-mail. PR’s words in italics…
Hello Rodney
I’m too lazy to send you a personal message so I’ll type up one and spam it out to as many people as possible.
Thanks for taking the time to meet with us yesterday. I hope you found it worthwhile.
The meeting didn’t waste enough of your time so I’m doing my best to waste even more. I hope my clients didn’t bore you to tears.
To help us deliver valuable product briefings in the future, would you mind taking a minute to complete the attached feedback form and email/fax it back to me.
To help us think in the future, please waste your on this inane survey and return it so we can bill our stupid client for something in addition to the meeting.
Now for the attached questionnaire…
Thank you for attending the… briefing. We hope you found the morning informative and full of story ideas.
Reading your publication or articles doesn’t involve billing a client so we have no idea what you write about or what your readers are interested in. We’ll also insult you by suggesting the material presented will contain something you may want to write about.
Please indicate your response to the following questions by marking the appropriate box
Time and day of week for a briefing
What are your deadlines and why did you agree to the time the meeting was held?
New product presentation content
I have no idea if my client’s products are relevant to your readership.
New product presentation length
I failed to check for drowsiness and head nodding.
Overall usefulness of the briefing
What do you write about again?
Overall usefulness of media kit
We’re in the age of electronic information but to attempt to make more of an impression we’ll waste time and paper on a media kit that will quickly end up in landfill.
If that wasn’t bad enough, questions followed with space for written responses…
What aspects of the briefing did you particularly find of interest and why?
What is the name of your publication, who are your readers, what topics do you write about, and what did you talk about during the meeting?
What aspects of the briefing did you find not of interest and why?
I forgot to note when you dozed off.
For which products would like to receive further information, review samples or images?
I know you will request further information when needed but decided to ask if you need any for the sake of wasting more of your time.
Other comments:
There’s a section called “Media Relations†on https://www.gedda.info I should read to learn how to do my job more effectively.
Furthermore, if even THAT wasn’t enough, the document concluded by prompting contact details of the journalist!
Name:
Publication:
Contact details:
Tel:
So there you have it.
Is it really that easy to make money? Simply start a business specialising in asking unnecessary questions?
Sorry for seeming overly critical, but as I’m sure any PR agency worth its arse will agree, the basic rule is to respect a journalist’s time. And asking a journalist for his or her contact details (which are available in every issue of our magazine – now put online for free) only succeeds in making a fool out of the consultant and a mockery of an organisation’s media relations efforts.
Oh, in case you were wondering, no I didn’t reply to the e-mail or survey :-).
Rodney
Crikey, that’s a bit over the top. It’s one thing to be concerned about hitting the mark with journo’s, but if they can’t suss that out by simply observing the level of interest shown at the briefing, and particularly from the questions asked (or not asked, as the case might be), perhaps followed by a simple, informal, verbal, “Did that hit the mark for you, mate?” on the way out of the briefing room, they’re in the wrong game. And I’m just dumbfounded at them asking for your details. That’s a real “what the?!?” moment, if ever there was one.
Thanks for your sympathy Rob.
Yes, it’s quite an extreme (but true) example of what we sometimes have to endure. Don’t stress, there’s no fear of you sinking that low mate 😉
Rodders
Hey Rodney,
Gotta say you should lighten up on the whole situation. I don’t have any sympathy for you to “endure” any PR. It’s okay to say “thanks, but no thanks”, “no”, “sorry, I’m on deadline”, and so forth. PR have a job to do and you have a job to sift through PR obscurities….and if you are smart enough that shouldn’t take too long at all…BS has a unique odor.
The thing that could well bite you on the arse is instead of spending a couple of minutes explaining to PR what stories you are interested in or filling out the form you are going to get bombarded with everything under the sun or left out of the loop of potent scoops or exclusive interview opps…. such is the industry, like or it not.
oops “potential scoops” not potent…stupid chubby fingers…where is my dialing wand?
Aww… Chasie… you’re making me burst out cryin’.
Of course, our time means everything to them so they always respect it, right?
For a journo like me that makes an effort to hunt rather than gather, I’d take that trade-off any day of the week.
Rodders
Rocket…do you type with both hands on the keyboard?
If it’s a matter of time why blog?….or wait around for desert at a PR lunch?