Tag Archives: media

A last straw example of meaningless gobbledygook marketing

Marketing, , , , , ,

I’m sorry. I need to rant about meaningless gobbledygook marketing.

Today I received an email from a marketing agency wanting to set up a meeting with me. I was so astonished by the depth of clichéd overused management style jargon that I almost feel like naming and shaming. Instead I am simmering down by sharing the beauty of the bollocks.

Here’s one of the many incredible sentences:

“Our unique, proven and collaborative approach of combining doctorate level theoretical analytics, strategy and world-class creative execution delivers ground-breaking, game-changing initiatives for ambitious brands.”

What on earth does it mean? Am I supposed to be impressed? Do they really think I want to do business with people who produce such claptrap?

There’s more.

“Our commitment to actionable strategies, ingenious ideas and sustainable impact has already led to successful outcomes.”

meaningless gobbledygook marketing

Okay hands up. I’ve used such language in an earlier more naive part of my career but now I like to think I have risen above such jargon.

If something is “unique” you know that it is just the same as everything else. If it is “very unique” you know the copywriter doesn’t realise that you can’t have degrees of uniqueness. “Innovative” is equally meaningless, “game-changing” even more so. Please don’t tell me about “value added” or how something has been “optimised” or “finessed” so that it attains the “scalability” to become “world class”.

Talk to me in plain English. That’s how I like to communicate. Verbally and in writing.

I can’t wait for the follow up call from these guys.

Over to you: This email was obviously the last straw for me hence the rant. Please share your own examples of meaningless gobbledygook marketing. I’d love to read them and perhaps create a list of the most magnificent and meaningless.

Why the Backlash against the Detective and the Time Traveller?

Entertainment, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Given that both Doctor Who and the first episode of the second series of Sherlock gathered nearly 10 million viewers each, you would think that they must have been pretty popular. But whilst there have been positive reviews of both in the traditional media, online it is different.

Tweeters are angry at how the Christmas day episode of Who presented an unsubtle environmental message and resolved the storyline with a “men are weak, women are strong” device. They also felt that there was a forced happy ending by wimping out on the implied death of Reg Arwell, the father of the children in the story.

Bloggers are fuming with anger over the way the same writer, (Stephen Moffat for he wrote both) recreated Conan Doyle’s original Victorian opera singer, Irene Adler, as a modern day dominatrix prostitute. Even the mainstream media were furious over her nude scenes shown before the watershed. In fairness her hands and the camera angles hid anything “rude”.

Is Moffat being too stereotypical in his portrayal of the women in his stories? Or are we reading to much into it and what we actually did was to create two great stories which actually entertained huge audiences?

Think about the Christmas day episode. By the time it came on air at 7pm, most people will have eaten a huge Christmas feast, drunk wine and champagne, guzzled Quality Street chocolates and eaten them even more Twiglets. Some may even have had a second plate of turkey for supper. Brains were fuzzy. Eyes were heavy. What we did not need at this point was the usual complexity of a Moffat plot weaving different time streams and interlinked stories of incredible intricacy. We wanted a light, family oriented story that would fit with our Christmas evening stupor. It’s what we got.

Doctor Who and SherlockIn 1941 Madge Arwell receives a telegram. Her husband is missing in a presumed crashed Lancaster bomber. She takes her children to a remote country house where they are entertained by a mysterious “Care-taker”. They get transported to a “Narnia” inspIred snow filled forest where they help the trees to escape from an imminent environmental catastrophe. Only Madge is strong enough to operate the spacecraft that is their salvation. And as she flies the children home the ship becomes a beacon that her husband Reg can use to make a safe landing.

For those who accuse Moffat of wimping out on the father dying, they miss the point. The episode raises the possibility of the death of loved ones and that’s something that any child has to face eventually. But it doesn’t go all the way and for a Christmas day family episode that is exactly right. Reg Arwell was “missing” but he wasn’t dead. As it turned out he followed the space craft -time jumped over a few days and arrived at the country house. For him, he was never missing at all.

Doctor Who and SherlockSherlock’s episode was a modern re-imaging of “Scandal in Bohemia” and unlike Christmas Who, was multi-layered, complex and therefore satisfying. I suppose I can understand the critics of the modern Irene Adler being a sex worker, and that it might have been done purely for titilation. Is this indicative of our society that modern writers have to reinvent heroines of old to conform to the plastic sexuality of the Reality TV world? Actually, I don’t think Moffat had these debates with himself. I think he just wrote two great stories both of which demanded very strong female lead characters and it was the stories that decided their circumstances .

Taken separately they might appear stereotypical, but separately they were just two examples of different women. Madge was a loving mother protecting her children at Christmas, Irene was an ambitious woman using her sexuality to make herself safe in a dangerous political world.

Doctor Who and Sherlock

“Doctor Who and Sherlock carried by two strong women.”

So two strong stories carried by two strong women. As for the males  I thought the leads, Matt Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch were both at the top of their game. Pages could be written on the relationship between Holmes and Watson, and even the most ardant critics must have shed a secret tear when the Doctor was reunited with Amy Pond for Christmas dinner.

Stephen Moffat served up two exquisite slices of Christmas pudding. Okay so Doctor Who might have been a little too syrupy, but I was one of those with a wine softened brain who needed something light, happy, family oriented and above all “nice” to enjoy on Christmas night. It worked for me.

Press Release Tips for Fitness Professionals

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The world of the media may seem like a scary place, especially with celebrity scandals, phone hacking, and high profile publicists mauling each other for column inches. It certainly doesn’t seem very relevant to personal trainers and fitness businesses. But away from the hyperbole of the National Media, local newspapers and radio stations are much less daunting. Most importantly they can be a useful method for raising your profile in your own area.

Press Release Tips for Fitness Professionals

Journalists and editors are constantly looking for interesting stories, especially something a little bit different or out of the ordinary. You will have already defined the unique services you offer, and may be advertising these via your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter or other media. Putting together a series of press releases highlighting these unique and interesting services can raise awareness and drive customers to your door.

The key is finding the hook that will draw the journalist’s interest. They may see many press releases every day, and ignore announcements about Bootcamps or Zumba classes. But one which also offers a Nutrition Planning Service may catch their attention. A release about generic personal training might be ignored but one focussing on new mothers regaining their figures following childbirth might stand out. Try putting together three or four stories that you can release over a month or two.

“Press release tips that help fitness professionals increase their local media profiles.”

Writing a press release is like any form of communication it needs to draw the reader’s attention and motivate them into a course of action; namely a journalist contacting you to discuss the story. Try using the following structure. Headline; Body Copy; Contact Details and Notes for editors.

For the release you need a powerful headline which sums up the entire story. “Local man and wife fitness team bring bootcamp and dietary planning to Worthington Park”, for example already provides a mass of information.

It’s outdoors in a park. A husband and wife team so it’s accessible to both sexes. Sounds like hard work but there’s dietary advice as well.

You should write the body copy of the release in a relaxed and informal style. It can come across almost as if you were saying it out loud. Provide some background about the service you offer then go into the specifics. You can deliver one or two pieces of information in the form of a quote which the journalist may well include in their article. “Fitness expert and local DJ David said, ‘Our bootcamps will improve your fitness and provided you take the dietary advice as well you will see changes in your shape'”.

Then include your contact details, mobile, website, Facebook and twitter. If you have any videos of yourself in action on YouTube provide links to these as well.

Finally prepare a notes section where you give more detail, such as your qualifications, the time of your sessions and the cost. Here you can invite the journalist to attend one of your classes. They may even send along a photographer as well.

Once you have drafted your releases, email them to your local newspapers (daily and weekly versions including any free papers) and radio stations. Google will reveal the contact details of most publications. Include your headline as the title of the email as well as on the release itself.

Sometimes the release may not generate any interest, or the publication may just copy and paste your words. Obviously the best result is for them to contact you to discuss the release. This is your opportunity to develop a relationship which could lead to more coverage later. You are the expert in your line of work so you could offer to supply more copy in future for feature articles, or just offer yourself as a spokesperson on fitness related issues. It could be the start of a very rewarding relationship – and maybe even a regular fitness column in the paper.

Thanks to the internet, even your local area is a clutter of information overload. But the media have a thirst for stories that stand out. Give them what they want and your fitness business will benefit from the investment of your time as more clients seek out your services.

Over to you: What do you think of these press release tips? What would your press release headline be? Please leave a comment and let me know.

A version of this article first appeared in FitPro Network Magazine

 

The Preposterous PR of Porn on a Plane – Ryanair PR Stunts

Marketing, , , , , , ,

Okay I’ve had enough of this. I have dealt with journalists for over 15 years. I know how to write a decent press release and to get a story out there either in-print or on-line. There is spin and there is super spin. There are true stories and there are tall stories. But the latest RyanAir PR stunts tale is so preposterous I can’t believe anyone picked it up let alone a national newspaper.

I don’t know whether I love or loath Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryan Air. You often see photos of him looking like a manic gibbon with a smile so wide you could land a Boeing 737-800 in it. And such a photo accompanied this Daily Mail article claiming that Ryan Air will put Porn on Planes. Yes that’s right. Passengers will allegedly be able to rent porn films on their journey.

ryanair pr stunts

O’Learly acknowledges that it wouldn’t be fair to put porn on seat back TVs. No it would instead be available on discreet hand-held devices that the porn watching passenger could angle away from his fellow travellers to spare their blushes. Perhaps the device would come in a big plain brown paper bag to add to this discretion. I doubt it.

And anyway in true Ryan Air style the cabin crew would announce it’s availability in their customary style, “Today ladies and gentlemen we have some filthy dirty mucky films for you to hire. Just ring the cabin crew call bell and we’ll bring your own personal porn player to your seat. Only £10.99 per hour and an extra £2.99 for a packet of branded tissue wipes.”

This is of course complete twaddle. But the Mail reported it as fact.

Why are intelligent journalists taken in by this PR posturing? Do the Ryan Air press releases include a footnote informing readers that the word gullible is not actually contained within the Oxford English Dictionary along with a suggestion to go and check. Obviously not otherwise we would have seen a tabloid headline claiming it’s true along side a photo of a giggling Mr O’Leary giving the thumbs up.

They fell for the statement about Ryan Air introducing charges to use to use the toilet on board. They fell for the frequent releases about introducing stand-up seating. Or more sit down seating made available by taking the toilets out completely.

Anyone with five minutes to spare can find that the 737-800s that Ryan Air use are already at their largest capacity under the Boeing certification and various Aviation Authority evacuation rules.

So it would be easy to debunk the stories. But they report it as fact whilst Mr O’Leary sits in his office cackling insanely and having a right good laugh at those he has duped yet again, and revelling in his free publicity – good or bad.

Personally I won’t fly Ryan Air because I was once kidnapped by them. There was a meeting in Dublin I was going to but after a 4 hour delay on the flight there was no point travelling as I’d missed the meeting and it couldn’t be rearranged for later. I asked to get off the plane (the doors were still open) but they refused and I had to travel all the way to Dublin for no reason. And then come back again. As a result if I had a choice between flying direct to Paris with Ryan Air or via New Zealand with another airline, I’d take the kiwi route every time.

The near genius of O’Leary’s PR is that the public know that flying Ryan Air is a pretty miserable experience and that they will get fleeced for extra charges, so O’Leary’s PR stunts fit so well with people’s perceptions of the airline that they almost could be true.