Press launches by their nature are designed to announce something to the media so that they can report on it, right? That`s what I thought too. But the more of these things I attend, the more I realise this is not always the case.
I had plenty of time to mull this over during a high-profile two-hour media conference I sat through the other day, to emerge none the wiser about the details of the programme being announced.
I had every hope that the news to be announced would be interesting. After all, the media conference was being staged in plush facilities in an upmarket part of town, attended by foreign dignitaries and multinational company hotshots.
My hopes of a big story faded fast as speaker after prominent speaker took the podium to voice huge excitement over the wonderful project - and no one took the time to elaborate on what it actually entailed. All I could discern as my eyes drooped was that I was witnessing a momentous event that involved lots of people committed to making momentous things happen. And that everyone involved was really pleased to be there.
So, what`s new?
"Branding events" are particularly bad at generating coverage, since they seem to involve a spectacular waste of PR budget without ever announcing anything new. So, while we journalists get f^eted like VIPs, we still have nothing new to report on when we return to the newsroom - sometimes days later.
Disappointed journos are left to slouch back to the office without a story - again.
Stephen Whitford, Journalist, ITWeb
And then there are plush events where enthusiastic marketers hype the media into a frenzy of excitement before letting slip that the product in question is not really a "first" or even particularly special at all. Disappointed journos are left to slouch back to the office without a story - again.
I may be na"ive, but I suspect that marketing budgets would be better spent on making actual announcements and showing off genuine innovations. For touching base with the media from time to time, an e-mail or a phone call would do just as well. And be a lot cheaper.
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