Even More on Press Release Approval
It seems we’ve struck a chord with our posts on the press release approval process. Notes from readers keep coming in.
From reader Brooke, “I worked for a major corporation and the news release process was laughable.”
From reader Jnyx, “It’s been my experience that Corporate America likes to wash all the creative language off a news release and then hang it out to dry in a paraded march down the hierarchy of corner office inboxes.”
Full responses, after the jump.
From Brooke:
My assistant wrote the releases and I edited them for her, encouraging her to write attention grabbing headlines that the are sure to get pick-up. Then the release went to my direct boss, who always had some minute change that didn’t mean anything. A lot of the time, people feel the need to make edits, just so it looks like they know something more about your job than you do. So, the release came back to me and then to my assistant only to go back up the ladder after the change.
From this point, it went to the CMO, who didn’t bother to even read it before passing it along to the divisional president and on down to the VP of marketing for the brand who also shared it with the Director. Now, it goes back up the ladder to the CMO, who gives it to my boss, who in turn tosses it over to legal, at which point all originality is removed from the release before it is approved to send out. The whole process took at least a week, unless someone else needed a change, then it was longer.
So much for newsworthiness or timeliness….
From Jynx:
It’s been my experience that Corporate America likes to wash all the creative language off a news release and then hang it out to dry in a paraded march down the hierarchy of corner office inboxes. But this approval process came long in the making.
A decision by committee usually results in a watered-down “safe” bit of 600 words or less – none of which tell the real story. After the PR industry has long forgotten that “news” is made and read every day – by real people, with real emotions, with real intellect – the trivial pursuit of perfecting the news release has become a task rendered emotionless and handled by an uninformed group of PR underlings.
The problem is never on the client side, they’re job is to determine their message. It’s becoming more and more obvious that PR firms THINK their only job is to distribute that message to a relevant audience. This is where breakdown occurs, because the client loses faith and doesn’t see value, almost always because there’s no counsel anymore (just massive billable hours in copywriting, pitching and clipping).
For a shorter approval process – hone your expertise, earn your credibility, build your reputation – be the firm that knows what’s best for the client and the approval time will shorten.
