Is It Really That Difficult For Some PR People To Pay Attention?
from the let's-try-this-again dept
Let's just start off by noting that there are a lot of very good PR people out there, who know better than to make the mistakes that others make. I'm not trying to tar all PR people with this brush, but unfortunately, there are still an awful lot of bad PR people out there. Sometimes we have to try to remind them to stop spamming us with stuff we'd never write about and absolutely don't care about. Of course, that never works, because the real problem is that the PR folks who spam us with stuff we'd never write about clearly don't read the site (otherwise, they'd know we'd never write about what lame press release they're submitting). A second annoyance, after the press release spam, is the conference spam. We can always tell the week or so before some big tech conference is about to happen, because our emails and voicemails overflow with "next week at BlahBlah Conference, you should meet with ABC company because they have an awesome new widget." Once again, these are rarely involving companies or products we'd write about -- and often are at conferences we have no intention of attending. Still, it seems that one PR person has taken this to the next level. Rather than just spamming random bloggers about some company appearing at the Spring VON show, this PR person spammed Jeff Pulver, the founder, creator, organizer and "master of ceremonies" of VON to ask if he was going to be attending and if s/he could schedule a briefing with the company. It's one thing to be so clueless not to know the audience of who you're pitching. It's another not to do the basic research to know if they're actually going to be attending a certain conference. However, not recognizing the organizer of the event you're attending and pitching at -- and sending him a generic boilerplate "hope your attending/schedule a briefing" email is pretty inexcusable. While Jeff doesn't reveal the name of the PR firm or the company it's representing, he might want to alert the company that it's wasting a lot of money on its PR bill.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Skeptical Reasonable Doubt
Depending on the bulk mail system being used to send out pitches, I could possibly see this being an honest mistake by a junior flack (as you're well aware, senior PR folks leave the grunt work to juniors).
But its still a pretty colossal error. And there really are a huge number of incredibly bad flacks in this business. When I was in market research I once got an eamil from an unknown flack with nearly 8 megs of attachments. I let him know how stupid it was and he still tried to "land me" for a briefing.
Also, I hate doing the conference call downs as much as you hate getting them, I'm sure. But I do always make sure the editor is appropriate before contacting them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Skeptical Reasonable Doubt
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Skeptical Reasonable Doubt
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Personal Arousal
Even if they were inappropriate for the theme of this blog - they still might arouse a personal interest... or come in handy for future needs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Personal Arousal
I've had a few occasions where I've missed legitimate mails from companies as I started to receive so much PR crap on their behalf I'd flagged them as spam...
PR companies used to be all about setting a companies image - I must have slept in the day when being an inpersonal spammer became a desirable image
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Personal Arousal
Even if they were inappropriate for the theme of this blog - they may still arouse a personal interest... or come in handy for future needs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Personal Arousal
Isn't this the intent of spam?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Link farming
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
" Know Thy Shit"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: " Know Thy Shit"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Reporters get pissed when conferences release their info when they register for the conference, but if conferences don't give that info out, then they all get spam. Guess its dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]