PR, American style

It was in 1991 that I had my first Big Mac. As a South African conditioned to accept that all in the global domain was superior and to be desired, I was stunned. This was not what I had expected. Surely, I reasoned, this was not the real Big Mac. But as a London Big Mac was proven to be the same as a Frankfurt or Dallas Big Mac, so I came to discern a universal truth: the Big Mac is the same worldwide. And it`s not the burgers we grew up with.

SA`s apartheid isolation had spared us the international mass production burger. Madiba`s release paved the way for us to sample its blandness... and sure enough, it is the same here as everywhere else.

There`s no strength, no goodness [in these press releases], yet the companies that release them are changing the world.

The success of this business model is a wonder of branding, consistency and slick marketing. That`s the model of American PR too, and it scares me witless as I see it entering our market like some noxious weed. It`s pervasive, it`s deadly, it chokes and once rooted it`s impossible to remove.

McDonald`s works because you know what you`re getting, every time, without fail. And as a client that`s what you want from a press release. Especially if you`re from the litigation-crazy US, where any word of enthusiasm can be construed as an attempt to drive up the share price.

So we get megalopolis corporations the size of countries merging and the two CEOs commenting that they`re "pleased" at the prospects! Holy mackerel! These guys have just redefined the world, and they`re "pleased"!

Here`s an American press release, popped out of the cookie-cutter. It`s fictitious, but it could have come from almost any of these corporations. We`ve all seen many of them, yet never published one.

Acme in strategic partnership with Ajax: Deal set to enhance prospects of whiter teeth for millions

Acme Corporation, Inc (NASDAQ: ACI), a leading provider of dental imaging software, has announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Ajax Servers Corp (NASDAQ: ASC), a leading provider of hardware compression algorithms for the medical market. The partnership will provide state-of-the-art X-ray storage algorithms for the dental fraternity.

"We are pleased to partner with Ajax Servers," said Bob K Nussworthy, CEO, chairman and founder of Acme Corp. "Acme has long demonstrated its commitment to providing the dental and orthodontia community with leading-edge applications that advance their capacity to serve their patients. Our partnership with Ajax underscores that commitment."

"At Ajax we have striven to ensure the medical community can provide rapid delivery of X-ray images to clients," said J Alec Mandelbaum, chief operating officer of Ajax Servers. "This agreement will reduce waiting time and total cost of ownership of X-rays, thereby giving doctors a strategic advantage."

Surely there must be a better way. I`ve yet to see one of these "we`re pleased" releases published verbatim. I`ve yet to see one of them actually put forward the business benefits of the technologies, or the ongoing implications. There`s no strength, no goodness, yet the companies that release them are changing the world.

But everyone accepts these releases. Everyone signs them off. At FHC we`ve been in a ludicrous situation where, with a US-based principal, we submitted a release done South African-style and it was blocked. We did a "burger" version and it was accepted. We then ignored this version and released our version - same facts, different style, different slant - and had wall-to-wall coverage, largely untouched. Scary.

So, next time you complain about a local burger, think for a moment... there`s actually some flavour in there. And then think about how complex, costly and time-consuming the process is that removes flavour from meat.

Ask yourself what sense there is in stripping all the goodness out of an offering, and actually paying someone to do it. Think how time-consuming and counter-productive it is.

Then think about a society that demands that this be done before it accepts the offering. And be grateful that South African society and business hasn`t gone this far. Yet.