I Hate PR Parrots

In my work as a journalist, I often send out queries over various services to find sources. (In some of the work I do, this is often the best way to find companies that have had particular experiences or insights that have not already been widely quoted in the media.) Some of the answers from PR people can be useful, many are either slightly or completely off topic, but there is one type of answer that has come to drive me mad: the echo.

The PR person, wanting to demonstrate how perfect his or her client is for a story I'm doing, will take entire phrases of my query and use them as the answer. Here's an example of a query I just sent:

I'm writing about the challenges companies and law firms are finding in patenting and trademarking clean-tech businesses, including strategies and approaches IP lawyers find to be working. Please, this is about the actual IP strategy and not about a firm or company telling about how it is establishing itself in this new area of technology. Some topics might be handling the often interdisciplinary nature of clean-tech or getting inventors to think beyond their own area of specialty.

Fairly to the point, I think. Now here are snippets of some answers I received, with the only changes I make being taking out identifying information:

• Would you be interested in speaking with XX of YY who is chair of ZZ practice who can discuss with you the challenges companies and law firms are finding in patenting and trademarking clean-tech businesses, including strategies and approaches IP lawyers find to be working.
• I can offer you a XX expert today to speak about the challenges facing companies and law firms re: patenting and trademarking clean tech businesses. We will address the specifics around the actual IP strategy (and the various challenges).
• Both groups are working in conjunction with the IP and Trademark groups in this area and can discuss some of the challenges and difficulties companies face in patenting and trade marking clean-tech businesses.

That list of answers and one or two others represented maybe 40 percent of what I received within a few hours of the query being emailed.

It's not that I'm categorically adverse to having something repeated back, but I do expect additional information showing the proposed source's expertise in that area and how this person might add to the discussion. That could happen in a number of ways:

• examples where the person addressed the particular problem
• a few briefly cogent points on the topic
• specifics of background that show the necessary expertise, which means not just working in an area like law, but in the specific subset that is at issue

Simply repeating my words doesn't show that someone is listening. If anything, it's almost a guarantee that the person hasn't.

An example literally happened while I was typing this. One of the above respondents mentioned a lawyer who seemed to focus on financial deals in cleantech - certainly interesting, but not useful when I need to get into nitty gritty IP issues. I answered, noting the person's expertise seemed to be in finance, not patent work. The reply? "Would you be interested in speaking with him and one of his colleagues?"

No, I wouldn't, because you're not listening and don't care what I'm trying to do or whether you potentially make your client look like a horse's ass. If he doesn't have the background to answer the question, don't reply in the first place. If he does, then say so. But don't ignore my question and act like an incompetent. Or does it not matter because you'll bill the client for the time spent on the interaction anyway?

Sometimes Companies Just Say Yes

I've seen so many companies in which managers put on a false face of bravado, but secretly cower. They are afraid of making any mistake, disrupting their comfortable existence, and avoiding any effort out of the ordinary. The theory is that if you don't do the unusual, you cannot get pilloried for it.

But business is risk, and companies must shake off the dust and try something new at times just to keep from being moribund. Today, IKEA is an example. A comedian and filmmaker, Mark Malkoff, had to have his New York apartment fumigated, so he decided it would be an interesting video to literally move into an IKEA store for the week. He asked - and they said yes. So he's in the store in Paramus, NJ at the moment, having fun and creating an enormous opportunity for positive PR and viral marketing. You can see the ongoing video series here. Realistically, there was little downside for the chain, much potential benefit, but saying no is so easy. Management there didn't, to their credit.

General Mills Undertakes Stunningly Bad PR

National Public Radio ran a story about a group of people in Potsdam, NY that has held an annual bake-off for the last ten years as a fund raiser for a local food pantry. Apparently the use of the term "bake-off" got the corporate Dough Boy irritated:

This year, food manufacturing giant General Mills contacted organizers and told them it owns the word, and only the company can use it.

How incredibly stupid does corporate management have to be? Had they contacted the people and said something to the effect of, "It's our trademark and we have to defend it to keep it at all, but we applaud your efforts and, if you can credit the trademark to us, we'd be happy to let you use it?" But, no, the iron fist came down and so did a story on NPR. Want to guess how long it will take for this to hit all other media? Want to guess the PR value of being seen as opposing food pantries and charitable work? How many boycotts on local levels will start? Could a competitor ever afford to cause this much trouble and get a competitive advantage? This is such a stupid blunder that it brings into question whether management has such tin ears that they cannot be trusted to do what is in the real best interest of the company and the shareholders.

AMD NDA DOA

I understand why businesses want to control information, both from a competitive information view as well as marketing. But there are times that a company squeezes so tightly that it bursts a blood vessel. That has happened with chip maker AMD. Apparently AMD was holding some event in Singapore and had a non-disclosure agreement so draconian that a journalist walked out of the event and spilled the beans. According to Techarp, the agreement required the journalist to "send any stories to the vendor before his newspaper can publish it."

AMD categorically denied it, and now Techarp has spoken with the journalist who noted that the terms technically required him to send in any article in advance to AMD for approval:

The PR person even had the temerity to say that it was "just paperwork and that everyone, be it a president or prime minister, had to sign this document". That was when Don walked out.

If AMD PR people think they have done themselves any good, they are fools. They've antagonized the press in a way to make it hostile, the story has hit Slashdot.org (meaning tech people all over the world are reading it), and they haven't gotten any better control over their "story" (the PR jargon for what is going on).

There was a time when people in PR generally first spent extended periods of time as journalists. This let them understand the mindset, including how to craft stories to be of interest to the press, and avoid the major pitfalls. Perhaps corporations should stop recruiting people right out of college and look, instead, for those who have spent time in the trenches and have something more to offer than vague corporate-speak and a lot of hand-waving.

University PR and Twists of Fate

I was speaking yesterday with a marketing and PR person at a writing convention. This man is essentially responsible for a good aprt of the topics and guests on television and radio shows, because he publishes a directory of potential experts and guests for the industry. He said something that tell a lot about the country, public perception, and business. Remember what happened last week, before the Virginia Tech shootings? If you mentioned universities the talk would have been of financial aid personnel taking kickbacks from sources of money. Or, and I'll add this one in, it might have been of universities complaining about the school listings of U.S. News & World Report (and a disclaimer, I've written for the publication a few times in the past). In either case, schools did not seem like candidates for sympathy or public concern. Now they're nothing but.

Companies often try to cover up problems they have, but for the vast majority of these issues, that's pointless and damaging, as any expert in crisis communications would tell you. They may have various theories, but it really comes down to a) if you start doing the right thing, people stop being so harsh, and b) when you cover up, you extend the life of teh story. If you don't extend the story life, something else will come along to push it out of the headlines. It's another case where the right thing is also the smart thing.