You’re Announcing Something?
You’re announcing something in a press release? Say it ain’t so! That’s so… obvious.
We have a rule at Cooper Smith Agency, we don’t announce that we’re announcing. I’ve never understood why anyone would start a press release by saying “XYZ Company announced today…” Isn’t the entire point of a press release to announce something?
At the very least, the announcement announcement is redundant, but worse, it’s boring and a total waste of valuable real estate. If you’ve only got a handful of sentences to catch the attention of a time-strapped reporter, certainly don’t waste any of it on unnecessary words that don’t actually move your story forward.
Just say what you’re up to. And if you can demonstrate the problem it’s solving, even better.
To paraphrase the old Nike slogan – don’t say it, just do it!
on Jun 10 in The Coop Scoop tagged
Cooper, Great advice. That good old fashioned intro goes back to the days when we actually held press conferences and really did “announce” things. Back in the day newsrooms were staffed with people who actually ran around town to different “announcements.” Today employees tweet the news before it’s official, and getting a reporter to leave his/her computer is a hard sell. Today a publicist is better off targeting placements that show products and services in action versus brag about new product attributes or corporate initiatives. Good post, Coop.