Offal News Releases: Is There A Pony In Here Somewhere?

WJ Deutsch & Sons Becomes Exclusive Sales and Marketing Agent for Three … and blah, blah, blah, blargh … so far no actual news.

The news anyone may care about lies buried beneath a long, wandering headline.

Some are worse than this, some are better. It’s just surprising to find from two highly respected companies who should know better.

But this is the one that pissed me off on this Saturday morning as I try to stay ahead of news for Monday’s News Fetch. Yeah, trying to sort through the avalanche is a seven-day-a-week job that takes at least two hours a day …  on a good day. But 14,000+ subscribers rely on me to waste my time so they don’t have to waste theirs.

And so, I slip into my Cabelas sewer-proof waders and plow through it. Most of the time I just let the stinkly stuff float by. Sometimes I get fed up by stuff that would earn a quick “F” on the journalism classes I taught at UCLA and Cornell.

Many times, these sorts of news releases come from someone who has never been an editor or reporter– people who have never been on the receiving end of a tidal wave of news releases all clambering for attention.

Short, clear headlines that put the real news first rise to the top.

Sometimes the writer has been an editor, but gets browbeaten by egos and corporate types who insist that they clutter things up for some other reason not connected to actually creating an effective release. The value of maintaining a steady paycheck and health benefits certainly outweighs the cost of trying to argue the merits of effective publicity.

Just because someone pays you for your advice doesn’t mean they have to take it.  Hey! It’s their money and they have every right to flush it down the toilet if they want.

I know a little about this because I once served as a Managing Director for a very large global PR and marketing firm, Manning, Selvage & Lee. I was also a VP and account supervisor for a major Los Angeles technology marketing firm (Simon) now owned by the Shandwick.

They were all great people. But I left MS&L to start my own Silicon Valley firm because I wanted the freedom to fire clients who would not allow me and my staff to create effective news releases and other marketing strategies. I got tired of being embarrassed.

When I sold the company in 1989 to move to Sonoma, we had 21 people in our Walnut Creek and Milpitas offices. We had some wonderful clients like NEC, Hewlett-Packard, and a host of start-ups like Kalpana (now owned by Cisco).

Firing clients that wanted us to deliver crap allowed us to excel. Rather than take the quick bucks grinding out sausage of questionable value, we managed to feel really good while bringing in results that allowed our clients to kick ass.

Kick-ass results make everybody — client and firm —  feel good … and bring in the profits.

More significantly, in the technology field, start-ups live and die by effective PR. As my colleague (and one-time competitor Paul Franson knows) grinding out news releases does not count. Visible, measurable results that boost income is the only thing that counts. The wine industry should expect no less.

But back to the source of today’s rant:  Companies who send out releases like this must realize that the people  they to reach aren’t going to waste time looking for the pony in the middle of this … and thus will surf on without reading. Big experienced firms should know better.

These two successful, respected companies won’t do themselves any harm. They won’t help themselves, either. But they both have enough money to waste. Smaller companies do not have that luxury.