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Why The Likes Of Edelman Don’t Get Tech PR

Why The Likes Of Edelman Don’t Get Tech PR

COMMENT: The technology industry is a goldmine for public relations Companies. It’s fast moving has constant new product or upgrades and above all fierce competition between brands. But do global PR Companies like Edelman really understand wha its all about.

The answer is NO. What they do know a about is charging vendors big fees, spin doctoring and delivering media reports for vendors that actually do not report whether ones PR investment is being well spent.

A classic example is big end of town PR group Edelman who represent several vendors including Samsung. They are also the same agency that got dumped by LG  18 months ago. A recent conversation with one of their senior executives clearly demonstrated that this Company has really lost it when it comes to identifying what is news and relevant Vs a subject which they believe that they can spin doctor or as they said “find an angle on”. Here is an example of why Edelman clients should be questioning their investment in the Companies operations. Last week Josh Delgado a senior executive of Samsung’s mobile phone division in Australia gave an industry address on the mobile phone market. He revealed that within the company’s business units that generated $US57.5 billion in sales last year, Samsung’s mobile division was the largest contributor to revenue growth.

He also told the audience that last year Samsung increased its sales by 20 per cent to 103 million units to become the third largest manufacturer behind Motorola and Nokia.  He even revealed that in Australia. In 2005, Samsung grew sales by 33 per cent. So is this news and relevant to the marketplace. Dam right it is. So did Edelman invite the technology media to hear the good news? No. With the exception of one or two whom in there opinion will go to an event after 6.00pm. There view was that most technology journalists are not interested in stories after 6.00pm which in my opinion is a load of garbage as I have been to many industry events in the evening attended by journalists. When approached as to why no journalists were invited or why no press release had been issued after the event. They said “We are still working out an angle for journalists. If you tell what your focus is we will find an angle for you”.

 

Hello, is the world round? The fact is that SmartHouse Magazine has been in the market for 4 years, its sister reseller trade publication 3 years and in that period we have constantly covered Samsung as a global brand in the lifestyle technology market and the mobile market. Yet I have to put up with some PR imbecile asking me whether what I write is relevant to Samsung. The fact is that Edelman is a classic churner. They take overseas product releases and churn them out the door to media organisations like mine and then claim credit for gaining PR exposure. Is this worth a big fat retainer? No, because we are going to cover a new product announcement anyway. The fact is that today the name of the game is getting news onto Google where everyday millions access the Google searh engine for information. Companies like Edelman don’t get this and as a result their clients suffer.

Today my business is more about web than print as it allows me to not only reach tens of thousands of people who visit our consumer web site  www.smarthouse.com.au  but trade sites like www.smartofficenews.com.au and www.smarthousenews.com.au.  

So do PR Companies like Edelman understand the value of brand PR the answer is No, and is that a big worry for vendors, Yes, as brand PR is worth far more than product PR. In 15 years of writing about technology and churning out roughly 3,000 words a day on various technology subjects I have never once had a PR Company come to me and say that they want to talk about a brand instead of a product.  The fact is that products get old and need to be replaced. Brands hang around for a long time. What Josh Delgado of Samsung’s mobile phone division spoke about goes to brand values not product PR. Consumers are loyal to brands just look at Sony. 18 months ago they were a basket case in the large screen TV market, today they are on a role with the Bravia LCD TV. 

What we have today with the likes of Edelman PR is a Company that is desperately trying to churn content and hours to make money. The staff they employ may have done a PR course but most are brain dead when it comes to understanding how or what a technology media Company like mine needs to be fed. For example during the time that I ran one of the largest IT media Companies in Australia I was never once approached by a PR Company with a view to actually trying to understand how we operate or what we need. Nor have I ever had one of them approach us to organise front line work experience for their account executives who don’t have media experience.

 

I don’t need a PR hack between a Company executive and myself to ask a simple question of an industry executive. I don’t need them to as Edelman put it find an angle to sell to us. The fact is that PR is critical in any marketing mix but we are not here to be a cheap form of communication. Companies like Creative Technology have been churning PR for years with little expenditure on brand advertising and look where they are today. Making big losses and desperately trying to compete up against Apple, who are very much brand and PR savvy.

Right now many Companies like Edelman are telling clients that they know how to spin the PR ball to get a result, some have even resorted to editorial inserts in an effort to dress PR up as an advertising message.

The fact is that media Companies need ad revenue to survive so we are a wake up to the Companies that try using media organisations as a free party political broadcast machine to get a message up without any investment in paid marketing other than PR. At the same time we like breaking news which is something that the likes of Edelman don’t understand. We like new products and we like brand and retail stories but for many Companies the question is what comes first the PR or the advertising. In an interview recently, marketing strategist and author Al Ries pointed initially to the credibility factor in launching an unknown entity through advertising. “Relatively speaking PR has more credibility than advertising he said. That’s why a lot of advertisers have tried to run ads that look like editorial. And the media has fought back by labelling that ad with the word ‘advertisement.

 

He says that the problem with advertising [to launch] a brand? Is that it has no credibility. Why would you read an ad about a product you’ve never heard of? See most people say, ‘I’ve never heard of it; it can’t be anything.’  Why would you believe what’s in an ad? It’s self serving; it’s a one-sided message.”

“He’s wrong,” concluded chairman of ad agency DDB Worldwide Keith Reinhard, who dismissed Ries’s challenge to the ad industry. “Why would anyone set up a completely artificial choice between advertising and PR? Any experienced marketer knows that we use them together. Every brand is different, every brand has different needs and different targets, and so we utilise all the communications voices at hand. But to say that advertising is not an essential part of this is nuts.”

For the records I also established Weston Communications Pty Ltd which was the third largest and most profitable PR Company in Australia. We worked on brands like Shell, BMW, Avis, Dulux and Pepsico. This Company was sold to Ogilvy & Mather and was the foundation Company for what is Ogilvy & Mather PR today.

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