This article is part of an occasional series where Sterling Communications examines PR efforts that have missed the mark, and posits how things could have been done differently.
Why It’s Important to Set Expectations for Off-Site Media Meetings
To the dismay of trade show and conference organizers, there’s a growing trend of cost-conscious companies exhibiting their wares in hotel suites in the vicinity of convention centers, rather than on the show floor itself. For other companies, it’s about privacy, not cost. They aren’t ready to be on display in an uncontrolled setting, but still want to meet with select partners, investors and media in “whisper suites."
For a public relations agency, this means you have to lure busy media folks off the show floor in order to meet with your clients. While it’s possible to arrange a 1:1 chat in a quiet (hah!) corner of the floor or in an adjacent lounge, you’ll prefer to have the reporter, analyst or blogger visit your suite if you have cool demos that require more than a laptop. And therein lies the challenge.
Shooting Straight
So what does a PR pro do? You want to get as many meetings as possible for your client but the off-site location is oftentimes a real deal breaker for reporters. Are you upfront with reporters about the location of the meeting? Do you put that in your first briefing request, get them on the hook, and then explain the locale? Will that risk irritating them and wrecking the relationship?
I’ve had clients tell me to keep the locale a secret until the reporter is committed to the meeting, but I find that only results in no-shows. While I don’t want the off-site location to discourage their interest, I want to win the war, not just the battle. So, I recommend being straightforward when requesting the meeting, explaining the site and also what the reporter will/will not see. Avoid using a bait-and-switch about the exciting Product X demo to persuade the reporter to schlep over to the suite, only to inform him/her that X isn’t ready so you’re showing Y, or that oh, by the way, the X demo is still confidential and off the record, on the QT and very hush-hush. He’ll only be immeasurably irritated that you dragged him off the floor under a false pretence and wasted his limited time, and could very well refuse to meet your client (and other clients) in the future.
There but for the Grace of ...
I happened to run across a relevant example of “what not to do” related to off-site trade show meetings during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month. My first PR instinct was to redact the names of the specific vendor company and the reporter, but the story is already out there on Twitter. I do not have an axe to grind with either party. Even if I did, I wouldn’t use social media to vent my spleen — so easy to do, but such a bad practice!
Below is a stream of tweets issued by Brian Chen, a staff writer with Wired.com. Chen was invited to go to an off-site location to get some up-close-and-personal time with the Motorola Atrix™ 4G smartphone launched during a CES press conference earlier that day. However, once in the hotel suite, he was refused permission to take photos of the phone. After “nearly throwing a fist” (his own description), Chen was allowed to take a few photos to accompany his first-look piece. He then vented his frustration via Twitter over the next several hours, with his messages re-tweeted by several of his followers. Moreover, the actual article that appeared on Wired.com was quite complementary to the phone features, Chen was not complimentary of the Motorola team.
January 5, 2011
7:16 PM: Motorola is the worst vendor I've ever dealt with. Made me take a cab to a different hotel to get hands-on with phone, then said no pictures
8:09 PM: You do NOT force a journalist to take a $25 cab ride to a diff hotel just to TOUCH a phone and say he can't take pics of it. #ces #motorola
Chen was still steaming in the wee hours of the next morning (January 6), after putting his story to bed.
12:35 AM: I'm personally boycotting Motorola after the post I just wrote goes live. Mark my words
12:41 AM: Hands-on with Motorola's @$#%ing Atrix Smartphone http://bit.ly/e8WsmY
12:46 AM: I can't believe those motherfuckers. They treat press like shit, and they deserve to be treated the same.
1:14 AM: You suck, Motorola. I've hated you ever since the RAZR. That thing ruined one of my relationships. Go to hell.
Here Endeth the Lesson
D’oh! The key PR takeaway is, Chen had a legitimate expectation to take photos after spending valuable time to go to this alternate location, not to mention cash for the taxi fare. This was not a stealth meeting to get a first-peek at an unannounced product. The Motorola team should have set expectations and established the ground rules with Chen in advance.
Had the same thing occurred in Motorola’s booth on the show floor, it’s still likely Chen would have been annoyed, but I doubt he would have exploded in Twitter — at least, not with so much venom. The wasted time, the cab line and the cost were all factors that caused his annoyance to boil over into rage. Unfortunately, today rage often finds an outlet in social media, with mistakes documented for posterity.
I look forward to hearing other trade show horror stories!
Photo credit: betsyweber via flickr
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