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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I'd love to know something of what the hell happened here...
At 08:31 yesterday morning, a news release purporting to be from Innotrac Corporation of Atlanta, Ga. hit the wires, announcing a "multi-year, multi-million dollar customer service and technical support agreement" with a large corporate client.
Trading in the company's stock went crazy, with the quote doubling and trading volume coming close to 300,000 shares (compared to an average of just 10,000).
Later in the day, the company issued a statement saying that the release "was not authorized by the Company and is totally untrue."
Now would be a good time to call in your crisis communications counsel.