Ever wonder how publications get all this groovy information about products that aren’t even out yet?  Generally… it’s because of a Public Relations division inside a company, PR firm (Or Media Relations, whatever you decide to call it) contacted the publication and “Pitched” a story.

Their job is to put products in the hands of editors, writers, and other journalists (including Bloggers, yes you folks are a wonderful segment of our population) prior to a product launch to get “good ink” (translation FREE COVERAGE) on the product to help drive hype and focus consumer attention on products that are coming out, and products that are already out.

Some of these companies do very well, and some of them do not.  Every other day for the next 20 days we are going to put a name on two seperate lists in this article.  The name of a company that belongs in the Top 10 BEST and the Top 10 WORST Public Relations People and Their Companies.  At the end of the 20 days we will rank them from 1 to 10 based on performance we have personally witnessed by dealing with them.

These firms promise a lot, and based on the amount of money they get paid, they should deliver.  Some of them are amazing, on the ball, and sensitive to things like deadlines (a HUGE part of this is getting a product in time to meet a publishing deadline that Editor’s put on various informative pieces).

Other companies are aweful, they try to apply old school technique like threatening with advertising dollars or not sending out samples in order to bully a journalist into writing trash (untrue garbage about a bad product or company).  Or they don’t properly explain to the companies they represent that they are coming hat in hand to a publication begging for free lunch (our time, our resources, and quite a bit of money goes into putting together a good article about a product).  That said if an organization wants to keep a product it really is the LEAST that a company can do.  Even if they do advertise the 10 cents per thousand banner ads just don’t give anyone much incentive to want to try out “yet another new amazing set of $10 earbuds!!!” or you know what? even a 55″ television.

Our publishing company for instance, is almost 15 years old.  (It actually is, but 14 years of it have been on the Internet)  We throw up an ad network, we have several publications and we do product reviews.  We have industry experts, and we just about break even.  We do not send anything back because that is the only incentive we have to write about things.  The old school of thinking is to “poo poo” on this practice.  The old school used to pay $25,000 for a single full page ad in a print publication too.  Now $25,000 will buy you a year’s worth of advertising online.  Talk about taking advantage of people right?  I guess it’s somehow “more” ethical to give 10s of thousands of dollars in cash for advertising instead of a $50 (or $2000) set of earbuds that the journalist actually enjoys because they reviewed it.

Not to worry there are plenty of companies out there that do “get it”.  We write about stuff, we tell the truth and we do keep the items that are sent to us.  We have always disclosed this to our readers and our readers are bright enough to understand that we like to keep the stuff we like, and they are bright enough to think “wow, cool job!”.

The thing that is different about Reviewboard.com for instance (which is our primary publication)… is we actually use these items for several months before we review them in detail.  The articles are ammended as we go along and so you get a quickie first impression article and then it transitions into a full review about 2 months later.  We are not afraid to update an article that is 10 months old with insight or issues.  I think that is why people come to Reviewboard.com to read about their products before they buy them.  We aren’t afraid to just set it on the line.

So without further ado (adieu is french for goodbye, I see this all over the place lol!) I give you the two lists and the names!

Top 10 Best Public Relations People and Their Companies (Without Rank)

• Weber Shandwick Worldwide (Boston, MA)
  • Specifically Josephine Cruz.  Gets us products incredibly fast, always on time, spec sheets and informative information in the box every time.  She also doesn’t call us every ten seconds asking for updates, and she’s happy regardless of our findings.  Professional and accurate 100% of the time.
• Dynabrand (Texas)
  • Cindy Young – Professional, accomodating and follows up to make sure everything we need is here.  Can’t say enough about her.
• Weber-Shandwick - Seattle, WA – Helen McClenahan
  • On the ball and organized.
• Stokke, LLC – Charlotte Addison – Connecticut
  • Incredibly professional, an eye for detail and gets the deadlines right.  Outstanding.

 

2012 Top 10 WORST Public Relations Firms (Without Rank)

• Gordon Sells Public Relations
  • Gordon Sells himself.  The most unprofessional behavior I’ve ever seen.  Represents high-brow consumer audio products.  I’ve seen this a few times with these old-timers that just don’t get it.  Suffers from Square peg round hole syndrome and keeps trying to apply yesterdays PR to today’s Internet world.  Epic Fail.
• On The Horizon Communications, Inc.
  • Jamie Relth – After not liking an article we did on the BOB stroller she proceeded to hound the writer and the editor for months afterward about how unhappy she was about the outcome.  The stroller was ranked pretty well, but the idea of a “jogging” stroller was not.  (child safety).
• MWW Group – New York
  • What a train wreck.  Completely unorganized, you have to follow up with their people more often than not just to get them to do what they said they were going to do.  They frequently miss deadlines (over the last 6 years) and it can be challenging to get information from their receptionist like “Who handles the Samsung Television account” (Happened just today, we were sent off to Dallas it took them 10 minutes just to get their Dallas office phone number for us, we call Dallas and they do Samsung Mobile and it was Edelman that handles the Television side.  Epic Fail.)
• Culligan (Water Softeners), Eric Rosenthal

• Was upset because he couldn’t control the testbed or get a fact check with authority to veto the article if they didn’t like it.  Was told we would review his product regardless and he put a lawyer on us who threatened to litigate should they feel they were unfairly treated.  Bully tactics, the article is slated for release in a few weeks.  What is laughable is the idea that we would trade our professional reputation simply because he has control issues.  One of the worst contacts we have had with any company ever.
• Ann Stilp – Ariens
• Ann seems to have no idea how to be professional enough to return a phone call or an e-mail.  We understand that being busy does mean that you might take a day or two to get back in touch with people that are going to make your company a ton of money by writing about their products… but there is really very little excuse not to get back with them fairly immediately ESPECIALLY when someone says they are on deadline.  This type of behavior is the worst kind of unprofessional nonsense.  A “No” is a fine answer, we can then go out and purchase an item to make sure it gets coverage.  However, when a company doesn’t return calls or e-mails it is a very bad sign.  After all… if they are not returning calls to people that can write very bad things about them… what do they do for their customers… the folks that can’t expose their unprofessional behavior?
• Karen Thomas – Thomas PR – On Behalf of iDevices
• Karen and her staff were asked for a sample for a cheap thing called the iGrill for a Father’s Day list we were doing.  In September I asked her where the unit was since they released a new version and she replied they ran out.  I said for 6 months? Then she changed her story and said she never promised.  Then I said wow you are a great spin doctor to which she replied that her “#1 Tech PR Firm” still uses alexa to determine popularity.  Clearly her tech savvy ends with her ability to play the game liar liar pants on fire.  If she was tech savvy she would know that 35% of our (and most other websites) traffic is mobile.  That number is only increasing because people with phones and tablets come to the site.  Because of iPhone and iPad device popularity Apple computers represent a much larger portion of the web community than 5 years ago (when Alexa was going out of fashion).  So the 20% of the users that come to our website that still use a windows pc (which is the only platform that Alexa toolbar owners have) are the only people that could have alexa and only 1/15th of 1% of those people actually have the bar installed.  This is common knowledge and has been for years.  Welcome to the new age Karen.  Welcome to our list of awful PR companies.
• UPDATE: Karen is a really bad liar, she claims we were never promised a unit. If that were so then why did she reply “they ran out of units” to my question about the promised sample? Why? Because she must have been aware that we were told we were getting one… Clearly. She has threatened us with legal action and while that is scary I think we can all agree we live in a free society where someone can tell about an event from their perspective using their opinion. Right now she is raging because she got caught lying and her feet are feeling the flames. Marshmellows?

 

 

**disclaimer (to make the legal boys & girls happy) This piece is an opinion piece.  It represents the opinion of more than one individual that works with these people yearly in one capacity or another.  Statements like “Suffers from … syndrome” and any other such statements should be taken with a grain of salt, clearly we are not medical doctors or Psychiatrists and we have not professionally examined these people, or had them examined.  These statements are made from personal observations at trade shows, on the telephone or in person face to face meetings and they represent personal opinion or latent anger based on their lack (or ours) of people skill