Thursday, March 15, 2007

hmm: PR stunts

Just a quick thought - it's been said (over and over) that there is no such thing as bad PR. While I'll agree with Oscar Wilde ("There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about") I have to hold up my hand to suggest there is bad PR, especially if you're engineering that bad PR.

Don't fret, dear readers, your author hasn't screwed up (yet). But in considering campaigns for a product launch, one of the ideas that surfaced was something that would capitalize on an item in the news.

Yes, it would capture the imagination of the news-hounds. It would also drive some good results that I could use as a PM. But in the long run, we'd be "those guys who did that thing back when".

All I'm suggesting is that in the execution of public relations that we proud few, we product managers, must always be diligent. Just because something "can" be done certainly does not mean that it "should" be done. Axiomatic, yes, but when asked "do we have to do anything to the product in order to do foo", it might be useful to reply, "why in G-d's name would you ever in a million years want to do foo?"

(I'll repeat - all the more reason to have good marketing leadership.)

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