Stage Two Consulting

Louis Gray wrote a great piece today on “Why the Embargo Process Is Broken and Why We Still Need It” and I thought I’d share some additional insight into the conversation.  I think his headline is dead-on accurate, the process is fundamentally flawed, yet essential for things to “work”.  I’d say in an ideal world, we wouldn’t need such a thing as an embargo, but that world is nowhere near around the corner. This goes back to a post I wrote recently on why “PR Sucks” - the incentives today are in the wrong place.

First, we have a category of blogs while I’ll call “newsmakers”.  The newsmakers are highly incented to be first to cover a story because it gives them additional credibility with their readers.  This is understandable, except the newsmakers rarely want to cover content which they are not first to cover.  Also understandable (albeit to a lesser extent, after all news is news), but it creates a very complex scenario to a company who is trying to get media coverage.  Basically they are forced into the position of having to choose one outlet to get an “exclusive”, thus frustrating all other outlets, or running the risks associated with embargoed content (including early leaks, broken embargoes, or simply disinterest in the story, to name a few).

The next problem is the fact that the newsmakers don’t want to write “echo chamber” content.  In other words, if a story’s been well-covered by 3, 4, or more of their competition, they are unlikely to be as interested, and will often pass on a story.  This is again understandable, although in my opinion they do shortchange their readership by taking this approach (I believe that if one assumes that their readers aren’t loyal, and creates content assuming their readers aren’t loyal, over a period of time their fate is sealed with an unloyal readership).

Question: So what’s to be done about it?

Answer: Not much.

This is, in my eyes, where relationships and approach matter.  I think it’s unfair to assume “bloggers don’t keep embargoes”. I think it’s also unfair to send anyone a piece of news along with the statement that “this is embargoed” prior to asking the journalist if they agree to receive the news beforehand! As we (and others) frequently preach: build relationships on a one-on-one basis over time.  Don’t mass-email, don’t assume, don’t blast, don’t spam, etc.

My biggest advice to the companies with news, product launches, etc is to give yourself enough time in the process to properly interact with the media.  If you are doing a simple update, such as new personnel, upgraded/enhanced features, minor partnerships, you can probably work with a few days notice.  If you have a brand new product, service, etc to launch, you may want much more time than that, as you’re going to have demos (which may require shipping things to people), you’re going to need lots of Q&A, there may be interviews, etc.  And if you haven’t noticed it yet, bloggers, journalists, media, analysts, columnists, whatever you want to call them are busy people.

Respect their schedules, respect the needs of their publication, and respect the content they are more likely to care about (because it’s comments like these that drive the point home).  In return, your embargoes will get respected, and your pitches will get respected.  It’s a two-way street.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.