THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE. GO TO THE HOMEPAGE TO FIND OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. arch emisou panton
	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, September 10, 2002 Posted by philgomes 9:29 PM SF Chronicle Discusses "Strategic Placement": It's taken me a while to get to this one, but I think it's important to discuss. I haven't seen it on too many other blogs, so I assume that it got lost in the Labor Day weekend shuffle. A shame, 'cause it's an important topic that voracious media consumers and critical PR pros alike should discuss further. (I am wholly, unremittingly, without-a-doubt described as both.) Media watcher Dan Fost wrote an article about the PR/IR tool known as "strategic placement," or the practice of handing an embargoed story to very few esteemed media outlets in exchange for the potential of huge amounts of ink. This often has the effect of spurring smaller publications to use the outlets that carried the leaks as tip-sheets, creating even more coverage. (And, just as often, the company winds up pissing off those outlets it chose not to leak the news to.) The article focuses on media relations as it relates to financial markets, blockbuster M&A deals, and very, very large companies—three areas where I've had only a medium amount of experience. Nevertheless, I feel that the National Investor Relations Institute CEO Lou Thompson is right in pointing out that leaking a story exclusively to a national paper like The Wall Street Journal meets the letter, though not the spirit, of disclosure laws. I work in a very different arena: PR based on science, innovation, and solving important problems. SEC regulations don't apply—good taste and sound judgment still do. Have I given exclusives? Sure. Has any exclusive I've supplied one reporter ever destroyed a relationship with another? Not yet—and the possibility of same would make for quite a deterrent if I had some certainty that such would be the case. But here are the realities. In my PR world, an announcement ceases to be news once it crosses the wires. There are several journalists who will expect to be briefed or otherwise informed before such an announcement happens, agreeing to honor an embargo. (It's been over a year since I've worked with a publicly traded client.) Failure to do so puts the relationship in jeopardy after a certain number of times. Unless the announcement involves fabricating single-femtometer transistors, curing AIDS, or discovering the fate of your socks after using the dryer, it will only get tepid pick-up on its own merits. (Trust me. Between PR Newswire and Business Wire, over 1,000 news releases were distributed today alone. Lexis/Nexis refuses to return an exact number for any amount higher than that.) In any case... If news releases are the primary sustaining element of your PR program, then you have a problem. With a modicum of creativity, this whole "strategic placement" issue—while still very important—becomes far less acute. (Only one of the above-hyperlinked placements was related to a news release, and it involved approaching a publication under embargo far in advance of the announcement.) And what about the media's demands? Consider the 2002 study by Vocus, wherein nearly one-quarter of the polled reporters indicated that the best way for email pitches to be considered more than "spam" is for the PR rep to offer an exclusive (PR News, "This Just In..."; April 29, 2002). Tough criteria, eh? How many truly compelling ideas for exclusives do you think you can cook up based on any one company? Dan Gillmor was right: "Public relations in the technology business must be an incredibly difficult job." Actually, it's not too hard. PR is not rocket science...It's just one of those things that's incredibly easy to screw up if you don't iterate, iterate, iterate your communications strategy. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.