Thou Shalt Devote More Brainpower to Promotional Mailings

I received a compass in the mail from a company that is hosting a trade show. It is a fairly elaborate compass – it is enclosed in a wooden box that is three inches tall and five inches wide, with a solid glass lid that opens to reveal a shiny compass.

The company also included a faux-passport with the compass. My photo is enclosed in this passport (it was taken off the Net). The passport highlights the trade show, which takes place in California, with the text “Head West!”

I’ve talked about crummy promotional items before, but I think it needs repeating. Either that, or the person who dreamed up the compass and passport nonsense needs to go back to my earlier column.

Now what’s wrong with the PR behind this particular promotional offering? From my perspective, here is where this stunt failed:

1. Enriching the USPS. The item was sent by First Class Mail, which as everyone knows is getting more and more expensive. Judging by the weight of the compass and assuming this was not designed just for me, I would think the mail tab would be fairly high. This is not PR money being well spent.

2. The passport may have seemed like a cute idea, but I personally have problems with people who reprint my photo without my permission. I was a little surprised to see myself inside the passport, then I was a little bothered that someone reused my photo without my okay. That was a bad move.

3. Now, really, why do I need a compass? Perhaps the PR rep confused me with Vasco de Gama? Or perhaps the PR planners thought it would be cute to use the compass to “direct” me to this trade show?

4. The mailing did not include anything about the show (I never heard of it) or its producers (ditto). The passport didn’t even have a web site for the show! Thus, the promotion becomes something of a mystery – one that I prefer not to solve.

The passport is going in the trash. The compass, because it is so heavy, will be used as a paperweight (I have no plans to consult it for travel directions). I suppose I will eventually throw it away when I have to clean my office.

All told, this is a fine example of bad PR.

(Phil Hall is the former president of Open City Communications, a New York PR agency, and former editor of PR News. His new book, "The New PR: An Insider's Guide to Changing the Face of Public Relations," is now available on Amazon.

Thou Shalt Not Blame the Media for Thy PR Woes

You may have missed this news from earlier this week, so allow me to repeat it courtesy of the Reuters news wire: there is a culprit to blame for the scandal involving tainted food shipments coming from China. The culprit is…the American media!

The culprit is…who? According to Li Changjiang, head of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine for the Chinese government, our pals in the press are the ones to blame.

“Some foreign media, especially those based in the U.S., have wantonly reported on so-called unsafe Chinese products,” he said. “They are turning white to black. One company's problem doesn't make it a country's problem."

An editorial in the Chinese government-run People’s Daily also shifted the blame across the Pacific: “In recent years those people churning out the theory of a China threat have grabbed hold of this issue and not let go, treating isolated cases as the whole and maliciously attacking ‘Made in China.’”

Thou Shalt Be Careful With Thy Media Databases (Another Warning)

I truly hate to repeat myself, especially when I am communicating with supposedly intelligent people, so please excuse me while I clench my jaw and growl out (again) a request to the PR community: please be serious about maintaining proper media databases.

As you may recall, my “day job” involves the editing of a mortgage banking magazine. In the past week, I received a series of e-mailed press releases from several PR agencies that have an extremely peculiar notion of what goes into a mortgage banking magazine. Here are a few lead paragraphs from the press releases that rolled into my office:

“Philadelphia, MS – After leading in the June 12th general election with 42% of the vote, Beasley Denson has been elected Chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in the runoff with 52.8% of the vote. Turnout was high for a runoff election, with 60% of the 4800 registered tribal members voting. The absentee ballots will be counted on Wednesday, but in the initial count, Denson’s victory margin appears large enough to guarantee victory.”

Obviously, today’s mortgage banking industry is extremely industry in the state of tribal politics within the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. It actually gets worse – here’s another press release that I received:

“DeRidder, LA- July 13 -14, 2007: NFL Hall of Famer Willie Brown has enlisted two dozen NFL Superstars-including JaMarcus Russell, the first pick in the 2007 NFL draft-to coach his Third Annual Football Camp. For two days in mid-July, De Ridder Louisiana turns into the football capital of the world. With NFL training camps in the offing, some of the League's best-known players come together in the tiny town (population 9,808) and teach football to 200 local kids.”

Three cheers and a tiger for Willie Brown, but how does this help my work as (yes, I will say it again) the editor of a mortgage banking magazine? And here’s another doozy that tumbled to my in-box:

“Westport, CT- Question: What do Chris Matthews from MSNBC's Hardball, Delta Burke of Designing Women, Erik Chopin of The Biggest Loser and Nick Jonas of the famous "tween"-heartthrob group, The Jonas Brothers, all have in common? Answer: Diabetes. dLifeTV, the first and only television show devoted to living with diabetes, today announced the lineup for their seventh season, which kicks off on July 15 (airing Sundays at 7PM ET on CNBC). With diabetes affecting more than 21 million Americans, diabetes awareness is at an all-time high. dLife raises the bar this season, bringing celebrity diabetes stories to the screen.”

Okay, I will admit: I am personally interested in the state of today’s American Indian communities, I like football, and I have a family history of diabetes (my grandmother died from complications relating to the disease). But, really, who were the dum-dum publicists who thought to send these press releases to a mortgage banking publication?

I also received press releases advocating holiday getaways to Smugglers' Notch Resort in Vermont (addressed to “Dear Travel Editor” – is my name Travel Editor?), the release of the book “Let Me Fly” by Mississippi author Elisa Mayo, and the Fleet Reserve Association’s 2007-2008 academic year scholarship program (anchors aweigh, mates!).

Please (pretty please), I beg you, take some time to carefully comb through your media databases to make sure the right media people are getting your news announcements. Stupid PR people who throw their press releases willy-nilly across the Internet make themselves look like fools and cast the industry as a whole in an idiotic framework.

(Phil Hall is the former president of Open City Communications, a New York PR agency, and former editor of PR News. His new book, "The New PR: An Insider's Guide to Changing the Face of Public Relations," is now available on Amazon.

Thou Shalt Not Follow the Example of Sloppy Volunteer Public Safety Groups!

I recently got on an altruism kick and decided to get involved in a volunteer program in my neighborhood. Since I am a desk jockey by profession, I figured that it would make sense if my volunteer work involved a bit of physical activity and intensity. Thus, I decided to poke around at the volunteer fire departments and EMS services in my area.

To date, I’ve not joined any department or service. And at the rate I’m going, I don’t know if I ever will. But in making inquiries, I received a reminder education in PR practices that would be salient to any communications professional. These include the following incidents and indignities that I experienced:

1. Make sure your web site is in working order. One site had its officers’ e-mail addresses listed – but when I tried to contact them, all of my messages bounced back. Another site had a PDF application to download, but the software was a bit buggy and I was unable to open the application.

2. Make sure your web site has all of the necessary functions in place. One site allowed me to download a PDF application to fill out, but it did not provide an address where I should submit the application. Two sites requested that I fill out my application online, which is fine, except that they wanted my Social Security number; one of those sites also wanted my driver’s license number. Neither site was secured, so I would be making my important data openly available to any joker who wanted to hack into them. Can you say “identity theft”? (I must say that I am amused by the idea of a public safety site that is unsafe.)

3. Acknowledge all inquiries. The site with the bounce-back e-mails did list a phone number. I called and left two messages, but neither was returned. I submitted my application to that group by fax and mail, but to date no one has contacted me. I e-mailed one of the sites with the unsecured application, but my message was ignored.

4. Avoid last minute call-outs. The one group that actually acknowledged my inquiries twice asked me to visit special events they were hosting. That was very nice, except that the invitations came on the day before each respective event. Since I already made plans for those days, I had to decline. If I knew about the events in advance (which could’ve been done very easily), I would’ve been able to participate. Strangely, the person who made those last-minute invitations seemed a little annoyed that I couldn’t drop everything to join in – that’s terrible PR, in my book.

5. Keep your appointments. That group in the fourth example invited me to visit their HQ. I agreed to show up at a specific time to meet with a specific person. I was on time, but my contact person wasn’t there – he decided to go out on a meal run with two of his colleagues. Needless to say, his superior (who wasn’t expecting me) had to fill in and keep me occupied until that contact person returned (which was 20 minutes after I arrived).

6. Listen to people and don’t force your agenda where it is not wanted. That 20-minute conversation mentioned in the fifth example was hilarious. The officer I met with was very happy to meet me: he wanted a PR person for his group. Which is perfectly fine, except that I was interested in EMT training and was not particularly eager to coordinate PR programs. Oddly, when I kept mentioning I was more interested in EMT training, this fella didn’t seem to be paying much attention – he then told me there were other duties I could possibly consider, such as volunteer janitorial work within their HQ (and, no, I am NOT making that up!).

7. Have someone with a brain answering the phones. Out of frustration at being ignored, I called one service yet again and got some loopy old timer on the phone who clearly didn’t know his ass from his elbow. All I wanted was for him to leave a message for the person in charge of volunteer membership reviews, but you’d think I was explaining the space-time continuum to him – I had to repeat myself four times just to get him to leave the message with the person in charge (please recheck last week’s Gospel about the PR perils of idiotic customer service).

So, here I am without a volunteer outlet, but with new lessons on how not to present yourself to the world. From a PR perspective, these organizations gave the impression of being disorganized, sloppy and rude. And if that’s how they treat people reaching out to them, I shudder to think how they respond to people facing life-threatening emergencies!

(Phil Hall is the former president of Open City Communications, a New York PR agency, and former editor of PR News. His new book, "The New PR: An Insider's Guide to Changing the Face of Public Relations," is now available on Amazon.