Michael O'Connor Clarke is proud to be a card-carrying flack. Currently based in Toronto, Michael has spent almost 20 years in corporate communications and marketing roles. He started blogging at almost the same time as he first moved into PR - over five years ago. Now he's trying to figure out how to combine these two areas of expertise for the benefit of clue-seeking clients. In his time, Michael has pitched people, products, processes and pop-tarts, but he has a congenital inability to peddle fluff.
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Cherry Beach Sound is this week’s worthy recipient of the Flackster Rancid Kipper Encomium for Ridiculous PR (aka the FRKER).
A friend who works for a prominent enterprise technology publication has granted me permission to pass on this sublime example of hopelessly befuddled pitchery.
Let’s lead with the email.
>Paul,
OK – first problem. The reporter’s name is not Paul. You got one consonant correct, but I’m afraid that just isn't good enough. Please try harder.
>I have a story or press release to deliver. Something in the now, a very hot topic in all the >magazines and talk. Have a look and put it in your next issue. I have more information on the >project and I can also send you a photo of Cherry Beach Sound studios where it was mixed
>upon request.
>Truly,
[Name Removed to Protect the Guilty]
>Cherry Beach Sound
I’m almost at a loss for words. What kind of nitwit would think this was an even slightly appropriate way to approach a reporter?
[About bloomin' time. I know, I know. Sorry. Busy trying to find a job and stuff.]
This is the subject which (if I was still actually employed) could get me fired. In a way, I guess it already did – when I became “the man who knew too much” at one firm.
Irregular, creative, or downright unethical billing practices are the dirty secret in too many PR agencies. Some of them don’t even realise they’re doing it – or they just don’t recognize that what they’re doing would, at best, raise serious questions were their clients to find out.
I should point out, before wading in too deep, that there are many clean, open, transparent agencies – agencies run by people with both the ethical intelligence and the business sense to understand the importance of setting and enforcing rules around what you can and cannot bill. These agencies deserve to succeed.
Sadly, I’ve also learned that the opposite situation is more often the case. There are very few hard set rules in the agency business about what constitutes acceptable billing practice. In extreme cases, the standard seems to be: if you’re even thinking about the client, you should bill it. If I thought this approach was even remotely fair, I’d be able to bill an extra fifteen minutes every morning in the shower, as my mind gears up to go to work for the clients.
To try to characterise the worst kind of billing machine, let’s start with a few horror stories I’ve collected over the years.
A couple of people have pointed me to this really quite remarkably weird story about R&B singer Omarion. There’s something more than a little odd going on here.
First – on the day of the horrific London bombings, Reuters ran a story, purportedly inspired by the singer’s publicist: "In London, uninjured Omarion seeks prayers." It’s an entertaining, quietly snarky little piece.
“Omarion was in London during the tragic bombings that struck this morning,” a statement by the singer’s publicist AR PR Marketing, released hours after the bombings, said. Making no mention of the fatalities or casualties of the blasts, the singer’s statement concluded, “He would like his fans to pray that he has a safe trip and a safe return home. He appreciates your support.” … Asked why anyone should pray for him, [publicist Shauna Gilmore] said, “He wasn’t hurt or anything, but just the fact that he was there and all that.”
As you’d probably expect, my first reaction on reading this story was: "what a wanker". As my friend Chris Wood at Maverick put it: “While tragedy unites us all, it also brings out opportunist maggots.” Sad, but true.
But then my inner fact-checker kicked in and I decided to dig deeper. The plot... curdles.
If you go to Omarion's website right now, you'll find a note denouncing the Reuters story as a hoax:
According to representatives at the artist's record label, Sony Urban/Epic Records, statements and sentiments appearing in a Reuters-syndicated article (Thu Jul 7, 2005 9:22 PM BST) and attributed to the American R&B singer Omarion were never made by the performer. Contrary to statements made in the article, Omarion is in no way affiliated with the pr marketing firm mentioned in the piece. The "publicist" quoted in the article is not a legitimate representative of the artist, is not known to the artist, and is not acting on the artist's behalf. Omarion regrets any association with the article and hopes that fans will not be taken in by unfounded and unauthorized statements.
Strange. Stranger still is that this is a revised version of the original disclaimer that went up the day after the Reuters piece appeared:
"Statements and sentiments appearing in a Reuters-syndicated article (Thu Jul 7, 2005 9:22 PM BST) and attributed to the American R&B singer Omarion were never made by the performer. Contrary to statements made in the article, Omarion is in no way affiliated with the firm, AR PR Marketing, nor is "publicist Shana Gilmore" a legitimate publicist acting on behalf of the artist. Omarion regrets any confusion and sends his thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims of this horrific tragedy."
Curiouser and curiouser. The totured layering of deniable disavowal hints at much lip-biting and hair-pulling at the record company.
Yet two minutes of Googling brings up a couple of stories seeming to confirm that Omarion IS "affiliated" with AR PR, including this puff piece about the agency stating: "AR PR Marketing has also successfully planned events for Omarion's album release..."
The AR PR website appears to be down at the moment, but Google's cached version of the site last week showed they were still prominently touting their work with Omarion at the top of the page.
Before the site went down, it went sideways. For a few days the front page of the AR PR site went unchanged, except that all of the links went to Google, Yahoo or MSN search pages. Now all you get is a default Windows IIS error message.
So what the fjǿrk is going on here? Is someone screwing with AR PR, or with Omarion, or both? I’d love to see a statement from the PR agency explaining their side of this puzzle. You’d think they’d want to do a little reputation management here, before the flying fickle finger of fisk flicks them into the wastebasket of failed agency startups.
Our hosts here at Corante occasionally encourage us to link to stories posted by fellow contributors or new blogs set up under the aegis of the Corante service. Makes perfectly good sense – it’s the kind of network family cross-promotion that is common within the big media conglomerates. There’s certainly no pressure to do this kind of thing at Corante and Hylton and Stowe always approach such suggestions in a tactful and polite manner.
I mention this as preamble in the interests of transparency, as I’m about to point to two new Corante blogs. This way, I hope you’ll recognize that I’m doing so simply because I like what they have to say and the subject domains they’re addressing.
First up is Rebuilding Media, a brand new blog looking at "the economics of content". I'm already a big fan of one of the blog contributors, Vin Crosbie, having followed his work at Digital Deliverance for some time. Together with Robert Cauthorn, Vin has already thrown up some good stuff at the new Rebuilding Media blog. Nicely put thoughts such as: "By now, media companies should start to realize that the time to start new-media subsidiaries has ended and the time to replace their old media with new-media has begun."
Worth following for anyone with an interest in the evolution of traditional media.
Next up, Corante has also recently launched Future Tense, where the purpose is to explore "how the modern work 'place' is evolving and adapting to new trends, technologies, and economic factors."
Quite apart from the fact that this is an interesting topic in its own right, Future Tense also happens to feature some great early posts from tireless and extremely influential PR blogger Elizabeth Albrycht. Great to welcome a fellow flack to the Corante stable.
OK - enough fluffy bunny stuff. We now return you to your regularly scheduled fisking...
This week's Flackster Rancid Kipper Encomium for Ridiculous PR (aka the FRKER) goes to this quintessentially cack-handed pitch, received in the Corante mailbox earlier today:
From: Four Corners Communications
Hi,
As your site is all about the Foo Fighters, I thought you would be interested in the September issue of Guitar World magazine which features an in depth interview with Dave Grohol. The below quote is just a part of the larger story which I know your readers will want to check out. Thanks for your time, hope you can put this up for the fans!
As Hylton put it in his message to me: "Um...Gets what we cover wrong, spells the name of the person she's promoting wrong..."
Indeed. For the record, as far as I can tell the exact number of references to the Foo Fighters on the Corante network (prior to this post) was zero.
Anil Dash has a smart, funny post about the horrors of misguided PR people pitching bloggers. Classic Anil - dry, charming, well-written, and absolutely right on the money. All PR people with their sights set on the blogosphere should read, digest and act on Anil's advice. Hell - even if you're just pitching a regular reporter, his post is still sound counsel.
Meanwhile, Russell Beattie - whose blog I've been enjoying for some years - responds to Anil's comments with a somewhat over the top rant against the PR industry as a whole. He's not wrong, but I don't think he's being entirely fair either. It's a sweeping generalisation and, like absolutely all generalisations, it's inherently flawed (yes, there's a joke in that, btw. Not a very good one, but it's Friday afternoon...)
In a post titled "PR People Are Morons", Russell says: "now that people in Public Relations have "discovered" blogging, I'm seeing a notable downward trend in the quality of the discussions online."
It's harsh. A lot of what he says is absolutely right, of course. I see no cause for debate in the point he's making. But the casual dismissal of the entire PR industry hurts.
Here's the comment I've just left at Russell's blog.
There are flacks and there are flacks.
That the PR business has more than its fair share of clueless mouth-breathers is pretty much a universally acknowledged truth.
And yes, it's insanely irritating and depressing to note that so many of these idiots and the dinosaur agencies that employ them have woken up to the existence of the blogosphere and are now trying to figure out how to "game" it.
But to suggest that the PR industry's discovery of blogging has directly led to "a notable downward trend in the quality of the discussions online" is hyperbolic to say the least.
I am a PR guy. I'm also a blogger. Have been since March 2001. That's a long time in blog years, but it's not even as long as many of the other PR people out there have been blogging. Personally, I don’t think I’m responsible for adversely impacting the signal-to-noise ratio. Nor do I think many of my colleagues in the PR world deserve such calumny either – people like Jeneane Sessum (blogging since November 2001), Steve Rubel, Constantin Basturea, Renee Blodgett. All fine, interesting, clueful writers – all people who “get it”. All, incidentally, PR people.
But lest I be misunderstood, let me be clear: I’m not upset by your post. In fact, I agree with you in most respects.
Let me say it again – there are an awful, awful lot of horribly bad PR people out there doing jaw-droppingly stupid things to try to get some kind of attention from the blogosphere. Wankers, without exception. Pitching blogs and bloggers, in particular, is a just a ridiculously bad idea (an issue I ranted on at considerable length, here).
Michael O'Connor Clarke is proud to be a card-carrying flack. Currently based in Toronto, Michael has spent almost 20 years in corporate communications and marketing roles. He started blogging at almost the same time as he first moved into PR - over five years ago. Now he's trying to figure out how to combine these two areas of expertise for the benefit of clue-seeking clients. In his time, Michael has pitched people, products, processes and pop-tarts, but he has a congenital inability to peddle fluff.
