When faced with negative publicity, you can fight it or turn it to your advantage. And that’s exactly what the Kazakh Tourism Board did in response to the newly released Borat movie sequel that portrays the country unfavorably. As a result, they are garnering tons of favorable media coverage.
The secret to grabbing media attention is the same as reaching any audience: respect for their world and knowing and delivering what they value most. Here are some tips to pitch like a pro.
Earlier this week, I had the great pleasure of speaking to the Society of Marketing Professionals DC Chapter about how to pitch the media. Most of the people in the room were primarily focused on marketing and business development.
Media relations have never been more challenging. With the speed of communications, the multitude of communications platforms, and the rise of press release distribution services, reporters and editors are simply overwhelmed by the number of pitches and press releases they receive.
NBC’s Today show devoted a segment this week to Alzheimer’s disease, with a “PR executive” who sincerely advocated for her cause (she noted that her mother had suffered from Alzheimer’s), but struck an odd note when she said that the disease’s “negative stigma” is due to a perception that it’s a disease that “old people get.”
It's not been a great week for the Anthony Weiner campaign. Aside from the candidate's own missteps, his communications director and spokesperson, Barbara Morgan, made her own mess. Speaking to a reporter from a political website, Talking Points Memo, Morgan lambasted former intern Olivia Nuzzi and her article, which painted an unflattering picture of the Weiner campaign and its team. Morgan's tirade broke just about every spokesperson training rule and used almost every expletive in the book.
Netflix this week rolled out a brilliant commercial campaign with wow-worthy framing of messages. It’s a story framed as news so topical and irresistible that Brian Williams dedicated an entire story to it on NBC Nightly News (remarkably airing on a network owned by Netflix’s oh-so-threatened competitor Comcast).
s we approach spokesperson training and media relations, our clients frequently tell us that they don’t want to do media interviews because they are always misquoted and the media is “out to get them.”
Last Thursday was Earth Day and there were the usual wonderful and less wonderful actions on the part of marketers, nonprofits and corporations to get in on the celebration by aligning and promoting their brand. Nancy Schwartz highlighted a number of great nonprofit efforts. On the commercial side, Leslie Kaufman wrote a piece for the New York Times about Earth Day now being big business.
