This is the personal website of John Watson: father, software developer, artist, guitar player. Follow me on Mastodon or Twitter or Twitch or itch.io or GitHub.

Dear PR agents,

I get regular emails from public relations agencies telling me—from the bottom of their hearts—about parent-friendly products and services. Normally I just ignore them, but I’m feeling ranty today.

Listen, I know you don’t really believe in what you’re saying. I appreciate that you’ve been hired by a client to spread the word about their amazing product. I appreciate that there are eleventy billion blogs in the world that you view as potential free billboard advertising space. And I appreciate that you view bloggers as “trusted influencers” who you think you can lead sheep-like to a new product or service that they will gush over on their blog because…

Well, wait a minute. I don’t know. Why do you think that?

Should I be flattered that a PR firm has contacted me personally? (It’s not spam if the form letter was written and sent by a person, right?) Am I supposed to think that the product is great because you said so? You weren’t paid you for your opinion, were you?

Since you don’t seem to get it, here are ten reasons why your blog-exploiting buzz campaign will fail and one reason it might succeed:

  1. You want something for nothing.
  2. My opinion is not influenced by the number of exclamation points or sly, parenthesized asides in your message.
  3. I don't know you and you don't know me. Why should I respect your opinion?
  4. You must think I'm incredibly naive to believe your paid-for opinion of the product is genuine or impartial.
  5. You have obviously not read my blog. If you had, you wouldn't have emailed me.
  6. You have absolutely no clue why people read me.
  7. You view blogs as free billboard space.
  8. Your message is written for an insulting, cartoony stereotype who does not exist.
  9. I am not fooled by your faux-casual turn of phrase. You are not my friend.
  10. You forgot to delete the instructions from your boss from the top of your form letter. (That one was hilarious. I got a follow-up email from them apologizing profusely for, essentially, not adequately hiding their true intent.)
  11. Bonus. Your attempt to exploit the trust of my readers is shameful.
And the only reason it might work? If the product or service you are pimping is actually great. And if it is, you don't need to be so coy about it.

Here’s the letter I received this morning:

Hi John -

Have you ever been driving in traffic with a car full of hungry kids that are all screaming for a McDonald's happy meal and wondered how you could safely use your phone to find the nearest one (anything to get them to be quiet!!!)? Parents are starting to catch on (not to mention love) Tellme, a service that gives you business listings for FREE by category or business search. With Tellme, you simply dial 1 800 555 TELL, say "business search" and then either the category you're looking for i.e. "pizza" or the name of the business i.e. "McDonald's" and Tellme will either text you the listings with directions and a map or say them to you (it will even walk you step by step through the driving directions which I personally LOVE). Need your wife to meet you somewhere with the kids? Have Tellme forward her the listing as well all in the same phone call.

Try it out for yourself – I have a feeling you'll be hooked!

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Best,

Jamie

Jamie Walker| Associate
Sparkpr |( 415.321.1887 | C 510.502.2981| * [email protected]
Finally, in the spirit of the "no publicity is bad publicity" credo:

I despise McDonald’s. I know how to parent and will not do “anything to get them to be quiet.” And the Tellme service, in my opinion, doesn’t work very well anyway. I tried it just now and, for review purposes, I asked both of my children (aged 5 and 7) to scream loudly in the background during the call—you know, to simulate your vision of my pathetic suburban family lifestyle. It failed to list either of the two In-N-Out hamburger restaurants within 2 miles of my home; instead, after three tries, it provided helpful directions to an In-N-Out Smog Check, In-N-Out Lube, and an EZ Burger. I am not hooked.

Who is this for? People who can’t find a McDonald’s? Seriously? Maybe others will have better luck, but I could only recommend Tellme jokingly.

With love,

John

Comments

  1. Elaine on 2007-06-11 09:05:30 wrote: I know how to find a McDonald’s anywhere you are. Turn a corner, drive 1/4 mile, you’re there. Because they’re EVERYWHERE. I wonder if someone would pay me for that little tidbit of information.

  2. cisco on 2007-06-11 09:21:34 wrote: I wonder what the “heading” from the document was…….

  3. Sherry on 2007-06-11 11:51:07 wrote: Even though I shouldn’t be very surprised by anything on the Internet anymore I am always astounded by how many people contact me regularly to tell me all about some great new product/service/movie out on DVD they have and how they know I will definitely want to mention it on my blog. Then they happily provide a bunch of links to the site, some images to use, and expect me to leap on it and post it immediately. Without ever offering me a free copy of whatever they’re trying to market. I only do reviews now for things I actually care about and for the Parent Bloggers Network where we ARE provided with a sample of the product or a free membership of the service in question so that we can actually try it out and give a proper review. And even then I make sure I only do campaigns where I can be honest and say that it sucks if I didn’t like it. These PR people kill me with their brash spamming.

  4. Kristine on 2007-06-11 12:29:21 wrote: I get the ‘parenting’ ones where they said they read my blog and think I am perfect to test out certain products that they will mail me. Unless they actually read my blog they would be sending me to CPS. Just kidding. Send me a damn Nanny.

  5. Matthew on 2007-06-12 07:32:04 wrote: I got the same email and laughed at the “McDonalds to keep my kids quiet” solution. I deleted it and moved on - but now I’m wishing I’d have blogged about it! I’ve got to look at these things as fun blogging material!

  6. SZap on 2007-06-12 10:05:43 wrote: What a wonderful and timely rant. I forwarded this on to the media group in my company because they were considering doing this sort of thing and I had the same reaction to the concept as you had to the reality. But, for some reason, they’ll listen to you -oh hip blogger, rather than me - highly educated but non-hip person whom they pay to provide precisly this kind of info. :)

  7. mc on 2007-06-12 10:57:53 wrote: great post! thumbs up.

  8. JayMonster on 2007-06-12 13:46:33 wrote: Maybe they could cut a deal with SnapPreviewAnywhere (or whatever they are called these days), and create the world’s most annoying product.

  9. Brian on 2007-06-13 11:37:57 wrote: John, Found your site from a friend’s site (http://standardcatastrophes.wordpress.com), and I just wanted to say I enjoyed your write-ups, especially this one. I’m actually in PR (well, kind of, I’m getting a Ph.D. in Communication with a PR major), and I hear ya…it’s too bad we can’t teach our PR graduates that PR isn’t about free publicity, but about making a product or service that speaks for itself. Alas, since I teach PR classes to undergrads, I’ll be doing my part to instill this performance over message skill…and I’ll pass your blog on so you won’t be getting any nasty spam from my students.

  10. Norby on 2007-06-13 17:08:02 wrote: I wonder if this has anything to do with their recent acquisition by Microsoft? They can turn anything bad just by touching it … -//

  11. What’s PR to do? « Theory N’ Practice on 2007-06-21 08:48:08 wrote: […] I was just about to write part II to the All Access Media post when I came across an interesting reflection of the state of PR practice today. John’s insightful rant is against PR professionals exploiting Bloggers to get cheap PR […]