Most Meaningless PR Pitch of the Day
As a journalist, author and long-time Publisher of BoomerCafe.com – the popular online magazine for baby boomers – I get loads of email pitches and news releases each day. Nearly all are unsolicited and nailed by my spam filter, as happens at most news organizations. You see, reporters are looking for stories, but most pitches and news releases are self-promotional fluff, the antithesis of stories.
Here’s an email pitch that came in today from a New York PR agency, The Rosen Group. I assume their client is Adweek but I’m not sure. The problem is, I have no idea what they are pitching, why they contacted me, and what the story is. I emailed the agency’s account executive to learn more but as is so often the case, they didn’t respond.
I point out this example, parenthetically, because based on two years of research for my new book, The Media Savvy Leader, I found that most PR agencies these days just shovel fluff out the door, and don’t really care whether it leads to a story or not. They are far more interested in billable hours than results.
So, here is their pitch, verbatim:
In light of Cyber Monday and the upcoming holiday shopping season, Adweek recently asked agency, client and media execs: “Can marketers rescue the holiday shopping season; if so, how?”
Here is a sampling of their replies:
“The holiday season in general is beyond rescue, but I think marketers can rescue their own holiday season at the expense of others. It will be a vicious battle for share, and the marketers who provide the most compelling reason why they should get the dollar versus the other guy will win. It cannot be ’same old, same old’ holiday messaging. Marketers need to force the choice or lose the season.” -Diane Fannon, principal, The Richards Group
“No. It’s gonna be coal in their stockings this year.” -Glenn Dady, creative group head, The Richards Group
“Tough times don’t change the marketing rules, they accentuate them. The key rule remains to provide relevant engagement. Stress how your brand empathizes and helps. Barring that: free eggnog.” -Dennis Ryan, CCO, Element 79
For the full article, please click here: http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/client/e3i4fc2c2322d54edacc89aa9c44f180022.
That’s it. No call to action. Nothing. By the way, did you see that long Adweek URL?! Clearly, the agency never heard of tinyURL.com.
Am I being too tough on such PR outreach? I’d like to know your thoughts about this blind email pitch.
Filed Under: Featured • Media Relations • Reputation management
About the Author: David is a veteran communications strategist ... writer ... blogger ... online publisher ... and Emmy Award winning former CBS Network News correspondent. He lives in the Washington, D. C., area, and works worldwide.
As the owner of my own PR agency, David, I can quite categorically say that if that had gone out the doors of my offices and landed on your desk, I would have felt you were slipping had you NOT questioned it.
These types of pitches are the reason the PR industry is such a joke at the minute. I’m not saying everyone in PR is like this, but it does seem to be getting more common.
Like you say – where’s the pitch? Where’s the call to action? Where’s the story? All I can see are some quotables by the usual suspects.
Here’s hoping the new breed of PR professionals coming through can stop this malaise, along with agency bosses that actually care about the client and the target audience.
@Danny Brown,
Danny,
Appreciate your comment, and I’m with you. Seems like with the demise of so many local agencies, gobbled up by mega-holding companies, pride in pitching stories and achieving results has taken a back seat to making tons of money.
David
I suppose the good thing (if it even is a “good thing”) is that these agencies will eventually be found out. Clients are looking more and more at value-based pricing as alternatives to high agency retainer fees.
When clients see that this is the type of “pitch” they’re paying their excess amount of dollars for, the agency in question simply won’t be paid, or at least nowhere near what they would normally charge.
That leaves them two options – start doing the work they’re being paid for, or lose out to competitors that will. Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised if many still don’t get the message…
so i guess this means adweek just wants you to cut and paste?
Seems the richards group coordinated on their negativity?
nobody called Rod Underhill?
I am only an intern but I know that if I dared to come up with messaging this weak I would never be handed quality work again. It should be basic knowledge that pitches need to be relevant to their targets.
Carlos, I agree with you. I’m just starting out in PR but I can’t imagine ever sending an e-mail like that. I’m sure it was just BCC’ed to whomever was on their Cision list. Yikes. Whatever happened to researching your target and sending them something that might actually be useful?
@Lindsey,
Lindsey,
Interesting that the client is Adweek. Wonder whether anyone monitors pitches on their behalf! Does not reflect well on the reputation of Adweek.
David
Agreed. This is a terrible email which I hesitate to call a “pitch.”
I’m a believer in straightforward pitches, usually in reverse pyramid.
If a colleague or intern had shown this to me before hitting send, the final email would have actually *pitched* something. It would have been concise, clear on what/who was being pitched, and would have indicated that the sender would be contacting you to gauge your interest.
My cell # is in my e-mail signature and on my biz cards. Being unreachable is the way to NOT be successful in PR.
“The problem is, I have no idea what they are pitching, why they contacted me, and what the story is.”
… And then you waste more bandwidth by writing about it and sucking new PR people into your ruse!
The “Most meaningless pitch of the day.”? I’d award it to you David for writing about something that you scraped out of your spam filter so you could plug your own book.
I guess the story must be: “Buy my book.” but only in a new, creative way.
Wes
Chicago
@Wesley,
Wes,
I don’t agree with you. It’s not a waste to write about such amateurish behavior by PR agencies.
I point to my book because of the need to discuss openly the lack of training for new people at agencies, where the only focus is an intense drive to milk clients of revenue. And, why shouldn’t I mention my new book? It will be published January 8, and reveals that smart leaders of corporations and organizations are increasingly taking personal responsibility for media outreach. Read it … you might learn something.
This sort of pitch that I focus on today, Wes, is more the case than the exception in the PR world. If you were a journalist or a news blogger, you might know that. At least I check my spam filter each day … most journalists do not.
David
@David Henderson,
David, I would hope that we could learn more about what’s the right thing to do by examining and studying examples of high quality, effective PR work. I doubt that anyone mistakenly thought that The Rosen Group had done anything more then attempt to churn out work on a slow day.
It *is* a waste to write about what is clearly inferior work. The best way to respond to it, is to ignore it. Throughout history students have learned and progressed by imitating the masters, not imitating the hacks.
As for your book, I would consider you a dullard were you, a communications strategist not to pitch the result of your years of hard work. Having said that and having read also, replies to today’s column, perhaps a more direct approach would more effectively drive buyers to purchase your book? I think that a column about why you wrote the book and what’s in it would be welcomed by your readers. Since we all agree that the direct approach is best, why not try a direct approach?
I’m sure that I could learn from your experience, but I hope there’s more to the book than; “reveals that smart leaders of corporations and organizations are increasingly taking personal responsibility for media outreach. ” I don’t think that you’re revealing anything there. They (the leaders) want the attention. They lack the skills. In most cases they fail miserably. Nothing to reveal there. I hope the leaders read your book!
As for your parting lines it stands then that good PR work in your opinion is the exception to the rule … I guess that’s why we call it exceptional. Why not use your soapbox to help make the exceptional more common?
Wes
@Wesley,
Wes,
I really appreciate your further comment. Actually, this blog has earned a respectable following precisely because it is a forum for applauding the exceptional while, at the same time, calling poor behavior what it is. It is not a soapbox because I will repost pieces from other blogs and have turned over entire posts to communications professionals.
About the book, I will write more about it and why I chose that subject in coming weeks.
Thanks, again.
dh
@Wesley,
Wes,
You might find this to be helpful – http://www.mediasavvyleader.com.
David
@ Wesley.
I think the fact that the “new PR people” who were “sucked” here condone the so-called pitch show that they agree with David on making a valid case.
I’m tired of having to defend the profession I love because of lazy pitches like this. I wish more people WOULD highlight lazy pitches like these – maybe the poor agencies and professionals would have less excuses to hide behind on such shoddy work.
@Danny Brown,
Thanks, Danny. The issue is even bigger – the agency model of charging billable hours for promises is broken. The mega-agency holding company model is broken. The manic agency drive to increase revenue streams is broken. As evidenced by the recent bloodbath at Porter-Novelli, many large agencies are in trouble and struggling. But amateurish pitches is not way to behave, regardless.
David
@Danny Brown,
Hi Danny,
It’s about confidence. Knowing you’re good at what you do. Surely you’ve conferred with a group that has that one person who goes on and on without saying anything. You find yourself checking your phone or email. You look around the table everyone else is ignoring the person too.
That’s what I mean when I say ignore the bad work. There isn’t a business out there that doesn’t have it’s share of hacks. To use the ever polpular sports metaphor: Play your own game.
You wonder why you feel that you have to defend your profession? It’s because we’re busy going into detail about work that stinks. Would you highlight your client’s worst practices? Would you go to the media with a story about low moral at your client’s HQ?
So showcase the examples of great PR. Treat your profession as if it were a client.
Wes
@Wesley,
Hi Wes. I do highlight great PR – constantly. It’s one of the things that I’ll converse about on Twitter, or my blog, or with colleagues, even families and friends. For example, I just wrote a blog about the 10 PR People to Follow on Twitter – so I do believe in highlighting excellence.
But if we don’t highlight the bad as well, then we’ll never eradicate it. Without deterring it, we’ll be stuck with it.
I also do highlight client bad practices with them – far from taking it as an insult, they genuinely appreciate the openness. After all, if it helps them to improve, won’t that reflect on their own clients?
I think there’s a difference between ignorance (which I would say would be the example you use of the guy at the conference table) and bad (which would be the lacklustre pitch on show here).
I know what you’re saying and I agree we should highlight the good, but not at the expense of overlooking the bad.
Thanks for the discourse,
Danny.
@Danny Brown,
Agreed, David. I’ve long been an advocate of the value-based pricing model. High cost/low return models are akin to dinosaurs – they just haven’t become fully extinct yet.
@Danny Brown,
I completely agree with you. Thanks.
David
David -
Out of curiosity, have you attempted to reach out to any the folks represented here to get their take on it. For example, I know you reached out to the Account Executive at The Rosen Group but what about someone higher up? Is this common practice for their agency? What about the client – who at Adweek approved this tactic? Is this something they’re comfortable with? Finally, the people quoted from The Richards Group and Element 79 can’t be pleased that this is how their comments are being pitched; I wonder if they’re even aware of this.
I agree with you in pointing out bad work and the importance of doing so. I also think there needs to be a sense of accountability in the industry. I can’t imagine that supervisors at The Rosen Group, the client at Adweek or those quoted would be very happy if they were provided a link to this post or shown the way the story (if that’s what’s being pitched) was distributed to the media. And that is when things will change – when clients are shown the poor practices and lack of effort and refuse to stand for it.
Greg
@Gregory Zeleny,
Greg,
Regarding whether I reached out to anyone at Rosen, I think you answered your own question through inside knowledge. There was no response, and that’s a big signal.
Yes, I believe the time has come … perhaps overdue … when the public relations industry is accountable for doing effective work on behalf of clients. The holding company model has corrupted in the industry to focus primarily on generating the most billable hours possible from each client, regardless of whether goals are met or good work is being done.
Thanks for commenting.
David
@David Henderson,
Hi David -
I’m not with any of those companies so I have no inside knowledge. I actually am not even in the public relations industry. I work for a technology company out of Manhattan and found your post through a Google alert and the topic caught my eye.
If you have the opportunity, I think it would be tremendously interesting to share the post with people at the three organizations and see what their feelings are on the topic.
Hope you’re well -
Greg
@Gregory Zeleny,
Greg,
As much as I believe someone should discuss the issue with those companies, I am not that person. I do believe that since it reflects poorly on Adweek’s reputation, they should be demanding an explanation. But that’s just my opinion.
David
@David Henderson,
Sorry for the double-post: The way I knew you reached out to the AE at Rosen is because it’s in your original post.
@Gregory Zeleny,
Oh, sorry, just the way I read your post. I now see what you mean.
DH
Wes,
Regarding David’s posting being a waste of time: David was completely correct in presenting a case study of error, since that is probably how people learn best from case studies. As Wendy Joung reports in Applied Psychology: http://cli.gs/Qbbjga
” The results provide some support for the hypothesis that it is better to learn from other people’s errors than from their successes.”
Furthermore, if public shame will help improve the quality of PR, we definitely need more public shaming.
eric.
@Eric Busboom,
Eric,
Really appreciate your comment. Thanks. I am very proud of my accomplishments in the PR business. But, when my youngest daughter was in college, she interned two summers for major PR agencies, and found their obsessive quest for maximum client dollars by delivering the lowest level of work to be so outrageously unethical that she changed her major, and is now in another field.
Perhaps a recession will force the return of more sober minds to the PR industry and make room for the truly outstanding firms to rise to the top.
David
I have been thinking about the suggestion that we begin calling attention to really egregious examples of attempts at PR by PR agencies … but here’s the problem – it would become all-consuming because there are so many examples. Besides, it is more negative that I wish to be on this blog.
However, some examples … like the one written about here … simply are too bad to escape our comment.
DH