Leveraging PR Opportunities: No More Plain Vanilla

In a 24/7 digitally interactive world where everyone is a pundit plain vanilla doesn't sell.

Corporate speak, processed prose and caveatted academic-style rhetoric are DOA; the white noise ignored by millions. In a world where you have to scream and act out to get baseline media attention toeing the party line and imitating Ron Ziegler is a prescription for oblivion.

I'm frustrated by clients who desperately seek the spotlight and when they get it, after Herculean efforts by PR people, squander it by speaking robotically, stonewalling or hedging every syllable. If Jim Cramer is at the far end of the attention-getting spectrum, everyone seeking access to the media, even access to a lowly blog such as this, has to have something sharp, different and interesting to say. Otherwise why bother? Nobody has time for the obvious. Everyone is insistent -- "tell me something I don't know."

I'm not advocating obnoxious behavior, slander or profanity. I'm not insisting that we become a nation of clowns, hucksters or attack dogs; mostly the realm of talk radio. But I am  advocating understanding the context of the media and the appetites of the audience. When you realize that soft news and entertainment rumors get much more traffic, attention and pass-along than hard data and real news that actually impact our lives, it has to shape your thinking about positioning and guide the kind of story angles you pitch.

Unless you are already a well known media commodity, if you are seeking to present yourself as an expert, you have to have an opinion. It has to be factual, relevant and punchy. You've got to speak like a regular guy not like a North Korean functionary. Animation, colorful examples, naming names, judgment calls and different perspectives on topics with media currency are what the media wants to find and the public wants to hear. We're all over plain vanilla.

Comments

[Engago team]

So PR should become more entertaining, more entertainment?

Steven Jobs is good at getting attention, maybe he is one of the best entertainers.

[Ian Alexander]

I agree 100%. Here's another take on this if I may: http://eatmedia.net/blog/2008/03/17/content-marketers-do-you-have-a-voice/