More on PR spammers

Nice post from Brian Sollis, PR 2.0 blogger, on Chris Anderson's blacklisted PR list.

Fair enough, he says. Unsolicited and unresearched pitches are bad. The flacks have probably learned their lesson. But it's time to remove the list of names from the blog. Brian goes on to say that Chris shouldn't continue to publicly crush the hopes of those who really were only, at the end of the day, doing their job.

I agree. It's not normally the PRs in charge who send out press releases, is it? The people doing the sending and pitching are generally account executives, who might well have a good view of who's writing what - but no real control over who's pitched. If a senior bod insists that Chris is the man to target, what junior staffer is really going to refuse? Right or wrong, this approach probably isn't going to change. I don't envisage every account director dropping their 'strategic' tasks (hmm) and selling in each press release or news story. But it might make them that bit more careful about who they're pitching to - and what they're pitching - in the future.

In the meantime, is it really fair to name and shame people, who probably had no control in the first place?

It's war

Posted on Wadds Tech PR blog, and Silicon Valley Insider, is the aftermath of Wired editor's blacklisting of all the PR people who've 'spammed' him in the past.

Seems like it's caused a bit of furore between PR outfits SAI and 5WPR.

SAI's Steve Blinn was clearly delighted that he wasn't on the blacklist, and whacked out a few emails on the subject - to the clients of his rival PR agencies.

Caused a bit of a stink, as you'd imagine. One of SAI's rivals, 5WPR, whose clients received Steve's email, is retaliating by trying to nab Steve's clients and his staff.

Steve forwarded the Silicon Valley Insider a corking email exchange between the two companies. Here's a taster. Nothing like a good battle.

5:25pm
From: Adam Handelsman, 5WPR EVP
To: Steve Blinn

Your email to my client is disgusting and I want you [and employee John Chapman] to take notice... I have instructed every one of my staffers (80) to personally target your clients. I will pay them an entire month’s fee as a bounty for every client they take from you. I am also personally calling CEO of your clients, and forwarding your BS email around the industry.

Great move moron... this is war!

6:15pm
From: Ronn Torossian, 5WPR founder
To: Assorted BlinnPR employees

Show us your paychecks and we will give you a $20K raise. Email me anonymously. If you send me your clients contact info and we close them I will give you $10K and your firm will never ever know. Please feel free to contact me and no one will ever know.

7:18pm, Handelsman to Blinn

I am going to hire someone to stand outside your office... 5k commission on new business to your staff, plus a 20% raise just to leave with your clients.You made my night. And yes, I am forwarding to all of your clients your note that you don't work late or hard... thanks... I do.

7:25, Blinn to Handelsman

If you do make sure she is good looking? Maybe she can hand out a one sheet on how not to get blackballed by the media.

Etc.

Show me the money

So, it's official then. The cold hard cash has been slapped on the table, swept quickly off the table, and into the back pockets of big cheeses at North by Northwest - the parent company of Hotwire - who've just sold up the entire business.

According to a press release from the acquiring company, Photon, the purchase price comprises an initial payment in cash of A$22.4 million plus
deferred payments tied to performance targets. So no rest for Hotwire and its new spin off, Skywrite, then.

It's a nice buy for Photon. Hotwire particularly is doing great things. Its payment by results method may have sparked chat that, to work for, Hotwire's a hard task master. But there's no doubt that its clients get results, and get them bloody quickly. It's also not a bad place to be, by all accounts. Voted the best consultancy to work for in a recent Holmes report, it's clearly doing something right.

How to be a decent client

Wise words from ex-hotwirer Daljit Bhurji on his Under Strict Embargo blog. Well worth a read

1. Provide clear direction - This was a clear No.1 priority for many agency creative workers in particular who have struggled to interpret vague instructions. Making something “more corporate” in look or language is not clear direction, though you may know what you mean by this. The best clients are the ones who are able to articulate what they are looking for.

2. Invite us to the table early - The earlier we learn about a campaign or new marketing initiative, the smarter recommendations we can bring to you. This may seem in contrast to the first point, as inviting your agency early might also mean you don’t yet have clear direction to offer … but at the early stage it matters less because as long as we have enough information, we can produce the best work. That comes from clear direction, or from early participation.

3. Be honest about success factors - The easy thing to say is that a campaign needs to get X number of views. Many times, the motivation for a campaign are more subtle. The smart agency guys (or gals) understand that part of your motivation is also to look smart in front of your colleagues. That’s nothing to be ashamed of - our job is to help you look smart. If we work together, we can all win.

4. Take the advice you are paying for - One of the toughest things to do as your advisors is to tell you when an idea doesn’t work. Too many agency people roll over and obey commands, but my experience with clients is that they respect you far more when you have a distinct point of view. The challenge is that once we share it, if you choose not to take the advice, we need to understand why. You don’t need to always follow what we say, but the thing we hate most of all is telling you something won’t work, being forced to do it anyway, and then getting blamed when it doesn’t work.

5. Know what you don’t know - We all have limitations in what we know and what we do. The clearest example of this comes when looking at design. If you don’t have a design background, you need to tread carefully with design feedback. Take the time to understand why a designer chose to do something a particular way rather than just sharing your personal dislike. A lot of thinking often goes into designs like this, and the most disheartening thing for a creative person is to just be told to arbitrarily change a colour or font or image that spent hours to select based on someone else’s personal choice.

6. Understand that changes affect timelines - This again is one of the common gripes from people in agencies, that clients change requirements or requests and still expect things to be done within the same amount of time. This isn’t reasonable, and the best clients know it. If you need to make a change, its ok - we get it. But work with us to get a real timeline for when we can make the change and get something back to you. We’ll respect you for realizing that.

7. Ask our advice - There is a book called The Trusted Advisor which has become the bible for many people who are in service businesses. As the title indicates, the book is about building a relationship of trust that gets to a level where you are considered an advisor even on things outside of your expertise. This remains the ultimate relationship between clients and agencies, and the one we all strive for.

Ear, ear

Oh how I wish this was true.

I'd very much like to suggest that Apple joins forces with Plasmetic, to do a little joint PR around both companies' commitment to the enhancement of the music listening experience.

In case you didn't see it, Plasmetic has run a story on its newest form of body modification - ear sculpture - which is said to enhance the music listening experience. Under local anesthesia, a plastic surgeon will use existing ear cartilage to extend the top of the ear. After three to four weeks, it's healed up enough for you to start telling people to live long and prosper.

Nice

You know you're a journalist when...

Insights from the journalist community on Facebook.

You know that you're a journalist when:

1. You're not able to get anything done, unless there's a deadline involved.
2. You think it's perfectly normal to measure the length of a text in words or characters.
3. You seriously believe that the fact that everything is fine is not worth reporting.
4. You think it's perfectly normal to go through at least three newspapers and a couple of news broadcasts before other people even get out of bed.
5. Your desk is so crammed with notepads, post-its and press-releases, that doing any actual work becomes practically impossible.
6. You consider any technical device, which can be used to record sound or video, to be a reporting tool.
7. You never go anywhere without at least one of your several reporting tools.
8. You even consider yourself a reporting tool.
9. You blame the existence of tabloids on people who are stupid enough to read them

Oh bugger

If you've ever thought about sending your colleagues to a press conference, to pose as journalists, think again.

FEMA, the US disaster relief company which has come under fire for its response to the Hurricaine Katrina, been slated for holding a fake press conference. And pretty rightly so.

FEMA got its staff to pose as journalists, in order to avoid the tough questions which would certainly be posed by legitimate members of the press. It didn't work.

Watch the saga unfold here

Facebook vs LinkedIn

I can only assume that the big cheeses at LinkedIN read my Bite comments yesterday, and based on my musings, decided to drop the firm as its PR agency after it won rival Facebook.

Not a bad decision - and there'll be plenty of agencies going for this one. For my money, it would be nice to see one of the less established agencies get the brief. Perhaps one that steers clear of 'out of the box thinking' and 'leveraging assets', and actually does something worthwhile.

Blog me up before you go go

Well, I start posting again, and news hits that I've lost a reader already. UK PR is bidding farewell to a long standing party circuit-er, now head of telecoms at Hotwire, who's leaving today for a career in Dubai. Sounds alright, actually. Rumour has it that bars in Farringdon are calling in disaster recovery experts as we speak.

Take note

It might refer to travel journalists, rather than technology, but this worth a look nonetheless

Stuff I've learned

Loyal readers (all three of you), so much has changed since I was last here. There's been a royal sex scandal for a start. The press have been banging on about Diana (this is not new). I've also seen rather too much of Britney's regular drug-fuelled undercarraige display.

A fair bit's happened in PR land too. Here's a quick update on the stuff I've learned while not blogging:

1. The World's Leading is dead. Woe.
2. Traditional journalist relations are now unnecessary. We all communicate on Facebook, and there's now no need for PRs to get drunkenly groped in the flesh. Just poked virtually. Facebook's particularly good if you're a PR who punts out products for the media to review. When sending out kit, the eagle eyed PR keeps their eye on journo status updates in order to act quickly if the words "XX is pissed off with his Nokia" pop up
3. Speaking of Facebook, most of the technology PR world tried to get a slice of the social networking pie when it stuck its UK PR up for pitch recently. Interested to see how Bite fares as Facebook's honeymoon period ends and the media get stuck in to security/privacy issues
4. Handy little mail merge apps for press release sending are getting universally binned(they should've been binned a long time ago admittedly). Journalists are getting their own back

Sure there's been a lot more that I've learned. Most of it's probably libellous. And as they say, got to leave them wanting more.

Come back. I'll keep this updated.

PR Week in an interesting story shocker

TWL got its wish to be PR Week's featured blog this week.

Does this mean that the editorial team actually reads it, then? And if so, I wonder when they'll use any of its insight to make their stories readable/interesting/relevant.

Oi fatty..have some of this..

Now, while this blog focuses on the gossip and quirks of technology PR, I thought it was worth moving away from home territory to draw attention to this press release from Pegasus PR - promoting its client LIPObind.

While the media distances itself from size zero models - championing the, ahem, larger ladies (think Beth Ditto's positive press recently) Pegasus steams in with a less than politically correct angle for LIPObind's slimming product.

Forget the seven-year itch, it says. Those in relationships are more likely to suffer the ‘two year bloat’. Two thirds of Brits say their partner has put on weight in the first 24 months of the relationship - and half think their partner could 'do with losing a few pounds.'

That got you thinking, readers? Been enjoying romantic meals and fine wines with your loved one, have you? Well fatty, time to stop that nonsense, and lose some weight. Otherwise, they'll dump you sharpish.

Thanks Pegasus/LIPObind - that's helped the self esteem no end.

It's plane wrong

There was a story in the Metro this morning, telling how a hapless passenger on a trans-atlantic flight was traumatised after a corpse was placed next to him in first class.

The traveller woke up to a shock when he found himself sitting near the corpse of an elderly woman who had died during a nine hour flight from London to Delhi.

"The corpse was strapped into the seat but because of turbulence it kept slipping down on to the floor," he was quoted as saying.

Not nice. But it's not the first time that this has happened. Oh no. I can exclusively report that a well known head of a global PR company had the same thing happen to him on a recent jaunt.

I can't reveal who it is -- but he's well known for his no-nonsense, some might say slavedriver esq, approach to his staff. Answers on a postcard, please.

What's wrong with cheese rolling?

A journalist friend drew my attention to this press release from Lighthouse PR - which claims that two thirds of senior PR applicants are 'unable to proof-read or spell.'

Lighthouse has been generous enough to give us an insight into the job applications it receives - to tell us that more than 75 per cent of applications contained basic errors including spelling and grammatical mistakes, formatting blunders and, in the worst case, applications addressed to competitors.

More interestingly, Lighthouse reports that four per cent of applicants admitted that the candidate had either faced disciplinary action or been sacked from a previous role. Peculiar pastimes cited included: ‘Wicka and Occult Magik’, ‘Nudity and Naturalism’, ‘Ferret-legging’ and ‘Cheese Rolling’.

All very nice, and yet another example of the Rainier/Lighthouse/Custard self-promotion which seems to be working rather well. But, Lighthouse says it's on a recruitment drive and is seeking to employ some shiny new PR people, and I doubt this press release is going to inspire people to apply.

Rather frustratingly, I couldn't spot one grammatical error or spelling mistake in the release. Now that would've been good.