Ruddgate coupled with Sainsbury’s and Asda jumping into bed together turned 30 April into a very bad day to nab newspaper coverage for my story. And it was actually, for once, a good story.
But a PR is always aware of that four-letter word you dare not mention to your lovely clients, who really believe a story can be ‘placed’ in the press as and when you like. Luck. It doesn’t matter how good a PR you are – on a busy news day your good story is going nowhere.
I shouldn’t moan. How often have I lapped up clients’ plaudits for coverage for some non-story on a slow news day? But things are about to go from bad to worse. Later on that Ruddy day, a client pipes up in a meeting: “Henrietta, the chairman has asked us to tell him what you’re doing and how effective it is. Can you provide a measurement?”
“Sweet Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. Measuring the effectiveness of PR is just what every PR tries to avoid.
You’ve got a good story, good images and you get bog all coverage because Sainsbury’s and Asda bloody decide to merge. Then, when you’ve got nada and forget to send the press release out on time, you get amazing coverage because sod all is happening that day.
Time to dig out said coverage methinks and embellish the hell out of those stories. Now I think about it they were pretty big… and as they say, you make your own luck.
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