First law of digital PR: at least pretend to read the site
Welcome to today’s masterclass in How Too Do Grate Digertal PR.
The following email dropped into the Mumbrella inbox at 2.15pm on Friday:
G’day,
My name is Sam Stone, Digital Director for LAVA Communications in Sydney. I am doing some digital PR for an integrated TV/Online ad campaign launching this weekend for ANZ Small Business.
“A bold new ANZ small business campaign launches this weekend and is expected to stand out in its category, for its energy, humour and broad appeal. Created by M&C Saatchi, the TVC and a wider campaign are directed at the SME market and will also impact favourably on the ANZ brand at large.”
G’Day Sam. My name’s Tim Burrowes, editor of Mumbrella. We published the story four and a half hours before you send the press release. We even emailed it to our newsletter 9000+ subscribers about three hours ago. Clearly you’re not one of them. Lucky the agency’s PR was more on the ball, eh? She sent us the release nearly 24 hours earlier. Otherwise you’d have missed getting the story in Friday’s email.
But there’s more to Sam’s message:
Full details and credits are in the attached Press Release.
If you post it and are able to email me back a URL I would really appreciate it!
Kind regards,
Sam Stone.
Or how about this, Sam? Why not subscribe to the Mumbrella newsletter? It’s free. There are very few regular emails that cover the industry you work in, so it shouldn’t be too much trouble for a Digital Director to sign up to them all. Some might even say it would be the professional thing to do. Then it won’t be quite so painfully clear that you don’t seem to read the sites you’re targeting. Or if you prefer, have you tried subscribing to RSS feeds? They’re good to.
If you do, you’ll even be able to do you own media monitoring, you know, like your client is paying you to, rather than asking for me to send you a URL. Still, on this occasion, I’m delighted to help out. Here you go: https://mumbrella.com.au/first-law-of-digital-pr-at-least-pretend-to-read-the-site-8818
Toodle pip!
Tim Burrowes.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
Linkedin
Snap!
User ID not verified.
Too funny Tim.
User ID not verified.
wow those guys are like awesome,
annoying auto play video on their website – tick
self proclaimed experts in something they have clearly failed in, as above – tick
ugly and hard to navigate website with no details as to who they really are – tick
they really have it going on on the interwebs there…
User ID not verified.
Uh Oh. Did someone get a 3rd party to send their press releases?
User ID not verified.
http://www.lavacoms.com/
Jesus, the 90’s called, they want their website back. Half expecting an animated fire gif on the page.
User ID not verified.
They’re good *too*.
While it’s quite an oversight, mistakes *do* occur, and not everyone reads industry newsletters and RSS feeds the moment they hit their inbox.
User ID not verified.
err, also: *your* own media monitoring.
It’s fair enough to call someone out for not doing their homework, but at least check for typos before you blast them.
User ID not verified.
@Barry, ahh typos, the bottom of the barrel of substantive arguments. Good to see you comparing apples and oranges there mate.
User ID not verified.
Oh dear, what a palava
User ID not verified.
eeeh, if you’re going to use “How Too Do Grate Digertal PR” as your opening line…..
User ID not verified.
Actually, these guys clearly are geniuses at viral marketing – we’re all looking at their site aren’t we?
We might be laughing and pointing, but hey – a hit’s a hit!
User ID not verified.
AP I think people are making the general and very well known fact that many so called ‘digital agencies’ simply have no idea about the web.
Check out 10 random agency websites, how many were in Flash? How many gave you the option to “skip intro”?
These same agencies take hundreds of thousands in $’s from clients to represent them online, when they can’t represent themselves… I truly scratch my head at times.
User ID not verified.
Wow. That website is incredibly bad. It’s dated 2009, not 1999!
For an “Australian” “viral” “agency” (quotes used intentionally) they have a very American-sounding voiceover.
It’s the scrolling logos across the bottom that make it hard. The links don’t even work.
User ID not verified.
Geeez, take it easy Tim!
That was obviously a small oversight.
You really like giving it to PRs, don’t you?
User ID not verified.
Hi Anon,
Partly it’s the role of the person that it came from that is worthy of comment. If a PR agency’s junior account manager sent something like that, they wouldn’t deserve it.
This is the agency’s digital director. I know lots of PRs in digital roles who I would be very surprised to see sending that sort of message.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Hey Tim,
You’re right, the Digital Director has much more responsibility than a junior. That much is true. However, everyone makes mistakes. Hell, I even seen a few on this blog.
My comments were more referring to the relentless vindication of PRs on Mumbrella. The commentary, reporting and opinions towards comm’s professionals just don’t seem very balanced to me. I see posts at least once every couple of weeks that name and shame one PR or another. And not much of the opposite.
As a loyal reader of Mumbrella, I’m not saying that you should stop this kind of reporting, I’d just like to see some more objective coverage every now and then.
Cheers,
Anon
User ID not verified.
Hi Anon,
That’s probably a version of the view that newspapers/ journalists only report bad news. It would be a bit dull if we carried an item every time somebody sent out a competently written press release.
But certainly I’m happy to give PRs credit where it’s due – and there’s a lot of it. I can think of quite a few PR account wins we’ve written in the last couple of weeks, plus the iSpyLevis case study of a couple of weeks back. Then there was the iPhone pop-up store. That’s all without me cheating and diving into the archive to find more.
If by “not much of the opposite” you mean that we dont also give journos a hard time, check out Dr Mumbo. We’ve even covered that topic today.
By the way, in this case, I suspect the issue is that this is a digital agency that’s dabbling in online PR. It appears to have the PR account for this client at least, which is an issue for other agencies that would claim to be better qualified. I’d argue that’s worthy of comment if they’re not doing it well.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
(And I’m guessing you may mena vilification rather than vindication?)
All fair points you bring up.
I guess that’s just my perception of Mumbrella’s content.
And, yes, that was a typo. I did mean vilification. Just like you meant to type ‘mean’ rather than ‘mena’ I suspect 😛
User ID not verified.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head Tim – digital experts are brilliant at what they do but that doesn’t automatically qualify them to be experts in PR and communications – even if it is online.
User ID not verified.
Do you misspell words on purpose? “They’re good to.” (sic). Not to mention the others.
User ID not verified.
Come on Tim, I come to Mumbrella because it’s not Campaign Brief. I expect more from you
User ID not verified.
geez, you guys got nothing better to do on a hot, sunny afternoon?
User ID not verified.
Wow – what an impressive client list Lava have. With that roster, I’m surprised that I’ve never heard of them.
I wonder how many are current clients? I wonder how many know that their logo is scratchily scrolling across the site? Anyone?
User ID not verified.
After reading Sam Stone’s message, Tim’s response and many of the posts I felt so sorry for Lava Communications… it’s pretty embarrassing!! … but then I thought… they actually managed to get all of us visiting their website and looking into their new campaign, their client list, etc… Maybe they done it intentionally? (mmhh maybe not!)
User ID not verified.
Nice bit of debate baiting Tim!
You remind me of Chris Locke (www.rageboy.com) sometimes — that’s a good thing.
Do I feel sorry for Lava’s Sam Stone? Not sure…
User ID not verified.
http://www.lavacoms.com/
Truly one of the most awful “web industry” sites I’ve ever seen. All that casino-style nonsense ate up so much CPU that my browser locked up.
I really hate these sorts of spin companies. They’re all going on the B-ark.
User ID not verified.
Regardless of how shit his PR skills are or how poor the company website is, there definitely was a glass and a half of vitriol in Tim’s original post.
A public naming and shaming was a bit harsh, no?
User ID not verified.
Harsh or not, It certainly was amusing.
User ID not verified.
Hi Dave,
I dunno. If you’re doing PR for a client and you know less about them than the 9000 people who received an email three hours before, isn’t that worthy of comment?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Yes Tim, it’s a little harsh- but the most amusing part is that they’re excited because one of the juniors who monitors the web stats just came rushing in to say that the website’s being ‘inundated with hits’ and they have no idea why. 😉
User ID not verified.
It’s clearly a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand’s doing — either in terms of when the release went out in the first place, or who it actually went to. I’d actually go a step further Tim, and say that even a junior could be put up for ridicule for this kind of thing because, frankly, it’s PR 101. If someone can’t co-ordinate when a release goes out, and to who, they’re in the wrong game.
User ID not verified.
i have to say, i thought Tim’s original post was way harsh and unforgiving, until i visited the Lavacomms website and was hit with the unshakeable autoplay American voiceover (“premeeeer viral”) video and unbelievably archaic graphics. the only thing missing were emoticon gifs. If you can’t market yourself, you can’t market anyone else. They deserve a hiding IMHO
User ID not verified.
ANZ are getting free publicity via this post.
Well done Lava!
User ID not verified.
I will build you a new site
User ID not verified.
Actually does anyone know of a worse agency website than Lavas?
As they should copy it!
User ID not verified.
My brother thinks I don’t know but he slept with my wife and ran over my dog.
He’s asked me to design him a site and I was wondering if you guys could do it…
Is that too harsh of me?
User ID not verified.
Google’s is pretty plain
User ID not verified.
is ther anyone out their – Robbie?????
User ID not verified.
Pop Quiz
Eat a bucket of shit or visit the lava website?
User ID not verified.
why are we worrying about global warming, terrorism, famine when there is something as tragic as that site on the net
User ID not verified.
hey freedomfries + bigboy: i bet a couple of donkey dicks like you couldn’t get laid in a morgue!
sammy stone rocks! z
User ID not verified.
this is better than RSVP I actually get replies back
User ID not verified.
“sammy stone rocks! z”
Oh, is that you Sammy?
Don’t you need to go and build a website or something?
Seriously though, I just think that your website doesn’t really reflect your company well – worth a refresh, and rethink a few details/strategies.
Don’t take it too harshly – this is an outspoken audience that are enjoying the fun, albeit at your expense…
All the best.
P.S. This IS an entertaining thread!
User ID not verified.
I love it when the Magic Guru’s of todays digital marketing gather and pontificate on what is good and bad.
In my short experience, there really aren’t many true successful viral campaigns, where word of mouth, tweets, emails or any social media interaction causes a huge surge of eyeballs.
I have been surfing the pages of mumbrella for a year or so – watching the debates.
Now I agree, the Lava site does bite, or is that byte. But then what in the hell do we all know.
here is a good example of what all of you would describe as a terrible design, that works.
http://oyunlar1.com/ – now malware spyware here, this simply a flash game site run by 2 guys in Turkey, that has a significant audience.
It averages 2 million users per day – thats right per day, they average an astonishing 8.5 page views per user with an amazing time on site of nearly 10 minutes per person.
Now thats engagement and size – no-one here could claim to in any digital venture they tried.
Why does it work – simplicity, content and they obviously know the audience. And don’t be fooled, half their audience comes from English speaking countries, including many Aussies.
So before any of us think again that design out weighs content and simplicity, then this is a good example it doesn’t.
Just my thoughts for the day, but dam they are good.
I’ll be back
User ID not verified.
There you go guys you asked for it!!!!!
http://www.themostamazingwebsiteontheinternet.com/
User ID not verified.
Wow that is an amazing website – Sammy have you heard of DOS – I heard it it the laest thing!
User ID not verified.
Sammy I have a commodore 64 that you can borrow – I’m upgrading to the commodore 128.
Are you keeping up with the commodore?
User ID not verified.
Everyone play nicely – no-one’s skin is THAT thick, surely? Poor guy must be taking it pretty hard by now.
Don’t take it personally, Sam – this has gone way beyond you. It’s just become a wonderful platform for us creative types to show how amusing we all are (and let’s face it, some of us can be pretty amusing).
So while it may be good for a laugh, let’s not forget there’s a (long) face on the other end of all this and it’s possibly time to let up.
Can I get an ‘Amen’ to that?
User ID not verified.
Amen.
User ID not verified.
Amen, again.
User ID not verified.
Kyle and Jackie O, is that you?
No-one else would think that’s an appropriate thing to say, surely.
User ID not verified.
‘freedomFries’, grow up.
If you think that’s funny, then you really need to do some serious self reflection. Sam Stone has probably accomplished far more than you have, and ever will.
Work on your spelling and grammar for your next comment.
Sam, good on you – ignore the losers and keep going.
User ID not verified.
I’m not sure Tom..in this case I believe the left hand exactly knows what the right hand is doing and more to the point so do we.
User ID not verified.
i don’t get this???? the site’s fine. Its simple and has some hardcore logo action. Is this a gee up to get traffic? seriously???
User ID not verified.
Can i get this straight? Two people, due to some miss-communication, sent the same email to Tim to post something about the launch and then failed to read the site with 1000 articles to check? Jesus Tim, you really cover the BIG issues mate. How did that not make the front page of SMH? I can see the headlines now – “ONE PERSON RECEIVES TWO EMAILS, YES TWO EMAILS, FROM TWO PEOPLE, BUT, WITH THE SAME FREAKING REQUEST!!” You must be a step away from covering some big stories in war torn areas of the world. That was awesome. Noticed some of your other stories….like digital douchebag…..the quality on your site is endless……..is this site the Today Tonight for advertisers?….don’t want to bag your business but surely you have the editorial discretion and hopefully the moral worth to ensure a bit of class and then not encourage the bitter comments that follow after. Lets see if you grow up from this date forward.
User ID not verified.
No, you haven’t got it quite straight, BC. But then again, neither do I usually have it straight at 1am on a Sturday night.
Have another little read of the story, and feel free to get back to me if you’ve got any questions.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
So how long will it take Lava to create a new site. or at least make sure the links on their own site work?
User ID not verified.
This has now gone beyond just inside banter and bad humor to libel and slander.
No I am not a lawyer, But clearly you guys have committed character assassination of this company and the people associated with them.
Yeah the site looks circa 1998, and I can’t say I have seen their work.
But this all started as a blog about getting two emails, one with typos.
So how did it get to this point?
User ID not verified.
Hi Doug,
I’ve removed a couple of posts that did potentially go too far.
And I think you’ve made a fair point. Things have moved on somewhat from the original issue. I’m closing comments on this topic now.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella