The Jeff Pulver Blog: Why Do PR Firms Send Unsolicited Embargoed Press Announcements?

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August 08, 2008

Why Do PR Firms Send Unsolicited Embargoed Press Announcements?

Yesterday I received the following message:

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From: Terry May
To: tammysnook@hightechpr.net
Subject: GIPS enables VoIP for iPhone - embargoed news until Monday

Hi Guys, On Monday (8/11), GIPS (Global IP Solutions), a global leader in IPmedia processing, plans to announce it is enabling VoIP for Apple's iPhone.

This means that application developers can quickly integrate quality,
real-time VoIP applications, which makes it easier for consumers to enjoy their favorite iPhone games, applications and social networking experiences.

If you'll agree to honor the embargo, we can send the release to you early.

We are also setting up briefings around this news. Let me know if you're interested. Best, Terry

Terry May
HighTech PR Inc.
[ email and phone number removed ]

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Humm, on the surface this does look like interesting news from GIPS and something that would be of interest to iPhone application developers.

However, I object to being asked to “embargo” news when I did not request information about the release. And in general, I don’t know of anyone who honors embargos anymore. So please do not send me information that I didn’t ask for and then ask me to hold back on sharing what might be interesting news.

So I have to ask, why do PR Firms send unsolicited embargoed press announcements to Bloggers?

Tags: Public Relations, blogger, PR, Social Media, Jeff Pulver

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Posted by jeff on August 8, 2008 12:23 PM | Permalink

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Comments

Sure, let's all just decide here and now to forever act like giant asses with all this stuff. No wonder people think bloggers are, well, just like this.

The truth is that there are plenty of ways for bloggers to deal with incoming correspondence - whether it's solicited or not. Yeah, it's frustrating and tiring but deal with it - or hang it up.

Seriously, the art of whining seems to have been perfected by the very bloggers who used to demand all the same status (and attention) as journalists. Did I miss the decree where we all granted bloggers the sole right to determine every possible condition by which digital communication is conducted?

Jeff, I'm not sure if you have kids or not, but imagine how you'd advise a child with regards to the act of pointless retribution...

Posted by: Bill at August 9, 2008 04:03 PM

@TerryMay,

One day when you discover a way to send individual pitch emails to people rather than including them in the BCC of an email, you may become more effective in your chosen profession.

You may also discover that being nasty isn’t a trait of a seasoned PR professional and something that some of your future clients may not all appreciate. You may want to dust off your copy of: How to Win Friends and Influence People - http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671723650 and re-read chapter 2.

And you could have avoided all of this if you had read - http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008349.html
prior to contacting me.

Posted by: Jeff Pulver at August 9, 2008 02:56 PM

Embargoes are usually arranged in advance as "gentlemen's agreements". However, sometimes publicists will send embargoed press releases to newsrooms unsolicited in hopes that they will respect the embargo date without having first agreed to do so — the phrase "For Immediate Release" often found at the top of press releases indicates that the information in the release is not embargoed.

Posted by: bank at August 9, 2008 02:36 PM

Well Jeff, Thanks for the PR 101. It compels me to explain our strategy so you can find something else to focus your apparently enormous amont of time on (how about the Olympics).

First, we don't have pure bloggers in our database, unless we've built a relationship with them in the past. Oh, surprisingly to you, some bloggers do accept embargoed news and don't take dangeously vague pitch letters as the news. Talk about Idiocracy.

Second, the reporters and analysts in our database are people we've built relationships with over many years across multiple technology markets (some we've known for way more than a decade...now I'm dating myself). Oh, thanks for including my contact info in your blog, nice touch.

Third, those key reporters and analyts who don't repond to our initial pitch, and many do because we have that kind of relationship with them, we call directly, especially if the news is significant to not just our client but the industry as a whole.

Lastly, you and all your former VON Magazine reporters have agreed to embargoed news from us in the past; some still do. Now that VON doesn't exist, I guess things have changed. That's our lesson in all this.

The good news for you is that you won't be getting these opportunities from us, or our clients, in the future. Then maybe, just maybe, you'll get the news right, which will be good news for everyone :))

Posted by: Terry May at August 9, 2008 02:18 PM

I think removing the contact info was the classy thing to do. As Michael Arrington touched on above, griping is fine and even encouraged but there was no need to publish personal info.

As an aside, your comment above - in my view - is much more constrictive than the post itself. Even more constructive perhaps, would be to give PR people a best practice in terms of how they might try to "build a relationship" with you. Plenty of bloggers love to make the argument propagated by this post but few take the time to actually pose solutions.

PR is a business and even good AEs might not have the time to battle through your 6,000+ followers on Twitter to get noticed. Maybe they also couldn't find you to rub elbows at that last conference. Now they have a piece of client news that might appeal to you... But how should they go about putting it in front of you?

That is the post I would have rather read - and no, I don't currently work in PR.

Posted by: Zach at August 9, 2008 01:30 PM

Looking back at what started this discussion, this is just another example of what I can best describe as a growing trend: “PR Idiocracy.”

@michael arrington - I would have to believe you are offered the chance to break the news of a number of companies on a regular basis. And being offered information on an embargoed basis may just be a way of life. But I think even for you, if the stories that you are asked to break comes from an existing relationship, you are more likely going to pay attention. And when someone who you have a relationship with approaches you on a personal basis, rather than including you as a BCC in an impersonal email blast, you are more likely going to take action.

---

In terms of being offered embargoed material, I am not TechCrunch, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or anyone else. I’m me. If I am not offered a chance to break a story, I am not likely going to cover the story when the news breaks unless I have a unique perspective on the topic and I feel I have something constructive to add. I avoid being a “me too” blogger. Which means most of the time I don’t do anything with the press releases I receive.

I wonder if the price of sending out a press release was equal to a cost of a postage stamp, whether this would greatly reduce the number press releases I get these days?

When I hire a PR firm, I look for the firms who represent me to be engaged in the entire process. The PR firms who have represented me in the past know how to pick up the telephone and call the person they are dealing with. They make it a point to setup personal interviews. They understand the value of the relationship and understand that in the long term, it comes down to being engaged with the clients you have and the people which whom you have relationships with.

Successful PR doesn’t happen with one eye closed. It requires involvement and total engagement. And at times, a lot of R-E-S-P-C-T.

Posted by: Jeff Pulver at August 9, 2008 10:18 AM

A good PR person would not just spam bloggers, I would think they should target and build relationships. The old rules of shotgun to the media may work, but I think bloggers are a little different than a journalist on a deadline needing filler. Blogger are the new journalist, so perhaps working the numbers in a shotgun approach can work. Maybe I'm wrong, but "embargo" is an interesting hook to perhaps get folks to post on something, so not sure if that is the intent, but a clever shotgun approach. Thanks for posting.

~jon

Posted by: Jon Gatrell at August 9, 2008 08:45 AM

I have pre-existing relationships with most firms in the tech space that allow them to send me news under embargo without my explicit consent for each release. If I don't have that relationship I don't feel obligated to honor the request, but we usually do anyway.

I think it's fine to gripe about this, but I wouldn't have included the email or phone number in the post.

Posted by: michael arrington at August 9, 2008 03:12 AM

The village called, they want their idiot back.

That's insane. If you want something kept on the DL you don't tell a blogger. That's like telling your Aunt Helen 15 minutes before her bridge club meets. Good luck with that PR, people.

Posted by: Zoe Winters at August 8, 2008 11:25 PM

Odd.....reporters we talk to are trustworthy and honor embargoes (even some bloggers do). It's a shame, and a sign of our times, that now we look at bloggers (and some reporters) as "untrustworthy" - that's why we don't have pure bloggers in our database as a PR firm. We handle these guys differently, as they should be. The reputable reporters we've known for years who agree to honor news are the ones who get the stories first. Pitch letters are usually dangerously ambiguous and are usually not considered "news" by any reputable reporter or blogger. Shame on them if they do because they're not getting the whole story. There's a reason why PR firms offer embargoed news; it's usually to help the reporter - sorry you don't get it.

Posted by: Terry May at August 8, 2008 06:20 PM

I don't think it makes sense to send out embargoed content to people you don't have a relationship with, period. Further, my firm always asks a journalist if they're even interested in the story before inundating them with all the embargoed info.

Further, it's my opinion that if the blogger/press/analyst gets content that is completely unsolicited and under embargo they are *NOT* bound to honor it (that's like telling a stranger a secret then saying "btw, that's all a secret" without even knowing who the stranger is! seems dumb). That's why it's so essential to spend time building relationships, not just collecting email addresses.

Posted by: Jeremy Toeman at August 8, 2008 05:35 PM

Jeff,

I had the same reaction as you.

Ask me if I want embargoed news though and I'll accept or decline. But tell me what the news in and request the embargo and I'll say, you just told me.

Posted by: Andy Abramson at August 8, 2008 05:15 PM

I'm one of those bloggers that honours embargoes when asked. But... well, I wasn't even asked in this case!

It's a bit of a boneheaded move, in my opinion, to put the news into the embargo request. But hey, maybe that's what it takes to pitch a story these days.

Posted by: Alec Saunders at August 8, 2008 05:09 PM

I look for agencies and PR professionals to R-E-S-P-C-T the people they are pitching and the companies they represent. I am not a fan of receiving a SPAM from a PR agency and I have no reason to tolerate it

When the PR professional doesn't show any respect to the bloggers they are pitching and in the process demonstrates they are lazy (no attempt to personalize the message), they don't get my respect either.

Posted by: Jeff Pulver at August 8, 2008 05:03 PM

This is a really tough one Jeff - and the line is a lot blurrier than what Jon mentions initially. Kristen's explanation is right on. The fact is, there's no hard and fast rule for journalists OR bloggers, and frankly, I view the two groups as one in the same. PR people need to find out from each outlet what their preferences are on embargoes.

I've had several bloggers ask for embargoed information, tell me they honor them, and thank me for sending them information that's not public yet. Shannon's completely right though - it needs to be done personally, not in a mass email.

Posted by: Adam Isserlis at August 8, 2008 04:48 PM

Hey Jeff - nice post here. I got this from Terry too, and had mixed feelings about it. Most of what I was going to say is in the comment thread already - so I just wanted to amplify one point, which is the big one for me. Bloggers and journalists are different species, and good PR outreach knows how to handle each.

Bloggers aren't accountable to anyone, and as noted, are more likely to post something off the cuff. That can be very dangerous, and these embargoes only work when the PR shop knows each and every person. Some bloggers will handle things like journalists and some won't.

You have to know which ones you can trust, and a shotgun approach is not the way to go. Like you, I'd like to learn more about what the "new GIPS" is doing with Apple, but this seems like an odd way of going about things.

Posted by: Jon Arnold at August 8, 2008 02:57 PM

Sorry. I tweeted a response to you a little too quickly. The reason behind emails such as this is to give bloggers, etc. the option to receive the information early so that they can have the story drafted and ready to print (hard copy and/or online) the day that the news becomes public. There are some folks out there that appreciate the heads-up. That said, now that I know your preference, you will certainly not be getting any unsolicited embargoed press releases from me.

Posted by: Kristen Keller at August 8, 2008 02:00 PM

Hmmm.....Reputable reporters and bloggers STILL honor embargoes, emphasis on "reputable."

Posted by: TEN at August 8, 2008 01:15 PM

One reason is that some news needs to be kept under embargo because it is for a publicly traded company and until the news crosses the wire for all to see, it is confidential or could be seen as giving someone a trade advantage. MSM get this and receive embargoed news all the time so they can "break the story." Embargoed news items give media time to prepare a piece so that when certain news breaks they can go out with a bigger, and more prepared story.

However, since a true blogger is all about "breaking news" there is always a risk when sending them "embargoed" news items.

The general rule of thumb says that unless you have a relationship with the blogger, don't pitch them aimlessly, or send anything they may post to their blog right away. In general though, and as you've said before, don't pitch a blogger unless you read their blog and participate in the conversation.

That said, I've got some news just for you....
;-)

Posted by: JB at August 8, 2008 12:53 PM