Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Who hires these PR people?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 05:03 PM
Allow me the luxury of rolling up my sleeves for a little rant here - perhaps you can relate? As I posted earlier, ArcSoft has released a Pocket PC photo viewing application. In posting on that application, I gave them likely the biggest amount of audience-specific free exposure they've had to date. An average Tuesday for this site is 17,000 visits. They have no demo to download, so I thought that getting a review copy would be a good way to check it out and let you know if it's any good.
So I emailed the public relations contact listed on the ArcSoft web site. It went to a woman named Heather, a group manager with Weber Shandwick. Having heard of that PR firm before I though "Ok, good, I'm dealing with a professional here that will know her market." What kind of response did I get?
Heather: "Thanks for your interest, unfortunately, we have to reserve our review copies for members of the press."
So let me get this straight - Heather doesn't consider this site to be press? It frustrates me when I encounter a marketing or public relations person who has no clue about the market she's supposed to be an expert in. How can she do effective marketing when she doesn't know about this site? It's not ego talking here folks - this site, Brighthand, Pocket PC Passion, pocketnow.com, and others make up a powerful communications mechanism for disseminating information to the community. To ignore that is to ignore a huge tool for cheap marketing. Refusing me a $30 piece of software, considering the free coverage it would get on this site, is simply ignorant.
Unfortunately, Heather's attitude isn't a rare one. My educational background is in public relations, and I've encountered many people like her in the industry. They only focus on the mainstream media sites like CNET, pandering to reporters who use the product for an hour and issue a summary judgment on what it can do. More often than not, their lack of detail does a disservice to their readers, but the PR agency can crow "Look! We got your product on CNET!".
Someday these companies will get on the Cluetrain and realize that community web sites are one of the most powerful marketing tools they have.
So I emailed the public relations contact listed on the ArcSoft web site. It went to a woman named Heather, a group manager with Weber Shandwick. Having heard of that PR firm before I though "Ok, good, I'm dealing with a professional here that will know her market." What kind of response did I get?
Heather: "Thanks for your interest, unfortunately, we have to reserve our review copies for members of the press."
So let me get this straight - Heather doesn't consider this site to be press? It frustrates me when I encounter a marketing or public relations person who has no clue about the market she's supposed to be an expert in. How can she do effective marketing when she doesn't know about this site? It's not ego talking here folks - this site, Brighthand, Pocket PC Passion, pocketnow.com, and others make up a powerful communications mechanism for disseminating information to the community. To ignore that is to ignore a huge tool for cheap marketing. Refusing me a $30 piece of software, considering the free coverage it would get on this site, is simply ignorant.
Unfortunately, Heather's attitude isn't a rare one. My educational background is in public relations, and I've encountered many people like her in the industry. They only focus on the mainstream media sites like CNET, pandering to reporters who use the product for an hour and issue a summary judgment on what it can do. More often than not, their lack of detail does a disservice to their readers, but the PR agency can crow "Look! We got your product on CNET!".
Someday these companies will get on the Cluetrain and realize that community web sites are one of the most powerful marketing tools they have.
