Tweetless

Posted by Tom Gable

This headline is actually a take off on a posting by Simon Dumenco on AdAge.com in September titled “RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) — and Long Live the Tweet. When It Comes to Pithy Spin, Should Marketers Be Taking Their Cues From the Celebrity-Industrial Complex?”

The piece was about as deep and fact-filled as a Tweet (or maybe two Tweets). One excerpt:

“The long-suffering, much-maligned press release, I’d argue, finally died this summer, thanks particularly to JetBlue and BP, with a little moral support from Kanye West and just about every other celebrity with thumbs. (Of course, press releases will probably continue to stumble along, zombie-like, for years to come, because too many PR folks are still heavily invested in grinding them out.)”

The piece did generate lots of attention and comments in several PR discussion groups on PRSA and LinkedIn. I commented on the AdAge site:

“Perhaps use of the news release will fade in the puff-filled world of the ‘celebrity-industrial complex,’ where fast, furious and fluffy seems to rule the day. For legitimate businesses, organizations, institutions and even individuals with a need to get out a quality message with some depth and detail, the news release will continue to be the primary means of communication. This is particularly true with publicly traded companies, where SEC regulations mandate full and timely disclosure. And blasting out a series of 140-character snippets of facts probably won’t qualify.”

Many others pointed out the shortcomings of the piece and also provided links to excellent research supporting the future of the news release. Here are a few examples:

“Serious news requires more than 140 characters. There’s a time and a place for a mixture of the methods we use, some are more appropriate than others — it depends on the client, the story, the event, timing, audience, etc. A true strategist knows how and when to pull it all together.” — Posted by Marisa Vallbona, APR, Fellow PRSA

“Burson Marsteller just published the findings of its message gap research (link). They make a great point – press releases are no longer written just for the media. Given how often they are posted by different sources across the Web, customers and prospects might be reading them as much as reporters. Nuances granted (e.g. press release don’t generate coverage, good media relations skills do), this is another reason the press release isn’t dead.” — Posted by Jon Bornstein

“The news release is far from dead, it just has a new purpose. Granted, it not be an effective media relations tool, but it has become an important online way to talk directly to consumers through search. The wires aggregate the news wires, and news aggregators are the second most popular source of news, according to Pew Internet (click here). – Posted by Eric Schwartzman

“Total hogwash. If you believe it, you haven’t read David Meerman Scott’s whitepaper on press releases and/or his book “New Rules of PR and Marketing” covering the new mind shift of PR/Marketing strategy…tossing out ANY long standing tool without realistically understanding your market, your media, and seriously considering some of the of the NEW and strategic ways of utilization is not a good idea.” — Posted by Melissa Freye

“Total overstatement…This headline was meant to grab attention without the substance to back it up.” – Posted by Toni Hatch

“I made my comments known in the comments section of that preposterous post. Anybody else tired of “FILL IN THE BLANK is Dead” headlines? So bait-and-switchy and gimmicky. Judging from the comments above, you all see through it. Meanwhile, here at Business Wire (Monika is vice president of new media at BW), and our worthy competitors, we are sending 1000s of press release each work day. That ain’t dead, folks. That’s alive and well. If you’re really interested, here’s a link to our White Paper on The State of the Press Release.” – Posted by Monika Maekle

(On the Ad Age comment section, she wrote about the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism finding that “As news is posted faster, often with little enterprise reporting added, the official version of events is becoming more important. We found official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though often not noted as such.”)

The AdAge piece did get lots of attention. There are precedents for hyperbolic claims erupting when tectonic shifts are underway in the media, such as the punditry about the anticipated death of radio with the launch of television or the deaths of traditional print and broadcast advertising when the Internet started taking off after the introduction of the Netscape browser in 1994. The deaths didn’t happen and won’t because of the same reasons the world won’t see the death of the press release any time soon: people get their information from many sources, so communicators need to make strategic use of all the channels, tools and tactics to reach those targets effectively and measure impact.

The press release may see different forms of delivery and packaging, but it will continue to be a potentially powerful communications tool for organizations of all sizes, particularly when the work is fact-filled, content-rich and tells a good story.

And for a few last words about advertising, which AdAge claims started in the U.S. in 1704:

“From any cross section of ads, the general advertiser’s attitude would seem to be: If you are a lousy, smelly, idle, underprivileged and over-sexed status-seeking neurotic moron, give me your money.” — Kenneth Bromfield

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. — Stephen Leacock