First rule of media releases: make them readable
When you’re sending out a PR release it’s important to make sure it gives over the information in a clear and easy to understand manner.
Which is why some journalists were baffled when they received Officeworks’ financial results release yesterday in this cursive font:
Apparently this is Officeworks’ “standard font” for media releases.
I would have understood this thinking more if it was bad news they were forced to deliver. Sheesh.
Whoever the PR is – in-house or agency – they need to take a long hard look at themselves. This is not innovative – it’s annoying and incredibly stupid.
I think you might find they use Neo Sans as a standard font and a lot of people don’t have that font in their system so it defaults.
use a newscorp or fairfax style guide.
as an editor, I’d always notice the releases written to journo standard and consciously favour them. conversely, anything with a % or 1 to 9 in it would usually go straight in the bin.