Kommentare zu: What if we axed press releases altogether?

Von: 2 Cent extra beim SMPReview Roundtable | Open Source PR

2 Cent extra beim SMPReview Roundtable | Open Source PR — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:57:03 +0000

[...] durch meinen Post zum hypothetischen Ende der Pressemitteilung als PR-Werkzeug luden Bastian und Timo zum [...]

Von: Rob Davis

Rob Davis — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:33:01 +0000

>>useless, meaningless, hollow, fake, gibberish bullshit

I’d like to see a Digg-like tool for media/bloggers:
– Pulls news releases from online databases
– Allows reporters to vote on quality/quantity of bullsh1t

Two anticipated problems though…
1. Scalability. Needs to handle terabytes of releases
2. Subversion. PR people would adapt and try to write the absolute worst releases, just to get the added visibility/clicks/coverage of being “featured” on the site.

Perhaps better would be some kind of spider or automated tool that could automatically assign a “bs ranking” — kind of like Google’s PageRank — to each release.

Von: Enrico Bianchessi

Enrico Bianchessi — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:43:15 +0000

Very interesting post and discussion. I totally agree that SMR is not “the solution” in itself: if there is no relevant and “value” content, is, as Timo wrote “new lipstick on the same old pig”. I linked this post in my blog, hoping to start a similar discussion… let’s see. Ciao

Von: Enrico Bianchessi

Enrico Bianchessi — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:22:33 +0000

Hi Tapio, very good post and discussion. I linked it on my blog trying to open a similar discussion, we’ll see… In the meantime let me agree with you that SMR is just (as someone wrote above)“new lipstick on the same old pig”, if not in connection with relevant content and as a part of a general communication strategy really focussed on the market, under every aspect. I’ve seen so many companies speaking to themselves, with their own language, considering strategic things that are relevant only and strictly in their offices… is a hard and long battle ;-)

Von: Christian

Christian — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:47:32 +0000

@ Tapio @ Timo:
To be honest, my impression is that a lot of companies finished the press release spamming over the last few years. But this impressions might be influenced by the fact that I mostly do brand pr/marketing communications and work with marketing people. A lot of pr people do still think press releases are the only way to get a news spread. However, as most companies care more about the effectiveness of communications this is hopefully a dying breed.

Von: Timo

Timo — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:51:03 +0000

@Tapio:
“You don’t put out releases just for the sake of doing it, do you?” I have seen that happen and i guess it happens a lot. I think most of us have seen three pages long press releases that have been edited by four departments in two weeks and have in the end led to four sentences in five news papers.
I guess one question here is: How do you evaluate the success of your communication? If it’s just clipping or a happy CEO who sees is company mentioned in his favourite local newspaper, well …

Von: Timo

Timo — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:41:58 +0000

@Christian: of course, I totally agree with you on the issue and logistics standpoints. It’s just that if you have a good issue but you use the wrong or crappy logistics to spread it, the effect/impact might be a lot less than what it could be. And thinking about logistics to spread an issue might resolve in finding how relevant your issue is to whom.

And I guess, like he just commented, Tapios post here is not mainly about Pressrelease vs. SMR but about the role PR is playing in the communications process. I know like Tapio said, many companies where PR equals Pressrelease/Pressrelations and nothing else.

Von: Tapio

Tapio — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:59:37 +0000

@Christian: I agree, releases are logistics, or tactics to achieve some goal. The point I was trying to make is that there is a huge discrepancy in perception of what PR can do for a company between those who commission PR work (clients) and those who conduct it (agencies, consultants). While many clients (not just American, but in my experience tend to be the extreme) see releases as a “strategic” tool, I see them merely as a tactical tool. You don’t put out releases just for the sake of doing it, do you?