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29-05-2012, 14:01
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http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ksbzarNcdyQ/T8S8iO466yI/AAAAAAAADPw/d2VPIl3XWic/s400/What-Do-Advertising-P.R.-And-Social-Media-All-Have-In-Common-525x338.jpg (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ksbzarNcdyQ/T8S8iO466yI/AAAAAAAADPw/d2VPIl3XWic/s1600/What-Do-Advertising-P.R.-And-Social-Media-All-Have-In-Common-525x338.jpg)One of the subjects we discussed at fair length at the recent European Beer Bloggers Conference is the thorny one of free samples and whether bloggers should accept them. Most are happy to do so, though a few aren't. Kind of allied to that, we also discussed the influence of bloggers and whether brewers read our blogs and if so, as a result, did they do the slightest thing about what they read. The consensus, backed up by brewers big and small was that brewers were very much on the ball and scoured blogs (or paid someone to do so) for good and bad feedback.

Now I get very little by way of free beer, but I do get quite a few press releases, some of which are interesting and some of which aren't. I was looking through some that send me stuff and thought I could do with some more from some of the bigger companies. After all I do a fair bit of industry comment, am just a little interested by beer and I have had ideas or even actual content triggered by press releases, so it does work. I started with, shall we say, a certain large brewery based in Bury St Edmunds. I dropped their PR company an email asking to be put on their press release list. This was in my own name and referred to my blog. What has happened since then? Nada. No acknowledgement and no flow of lovely info either. Another annoyance is at trade events where a brewery rep asks you to drop him/her a line. I sometimes do and that's usually the last I hear of it. It happened fairly recently with a North West Brewery. It would be embarrassing to contact them again. I don't want to be put in that position. Their loss I suppose. I even did a small piece (unpaid) for a brewery in house magazine and had huge trouble even getting a copy of the published item.

So this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. It isn't unique to Greene King either, but you know, if I was them I'd be quite annoyed. The employ, presumably for a large wedge, a company to look after their PR and what do they do? They ignore a genuine and valid request, thus allowing what could have turned out well for their client, into something negative and giving me cause to have a pop.

That's value for money! Not.

There's no copyright statement on the cartoon, but a shout out goes to Hugh MacLeod at www.gapingvoid.com (http://www.gapingvoid.com/) It kinda sums it up.https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8629758183547510158-9077097943052592905?l=tandlemanbeerblog.blogspot.c om


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