We’ve got Glinda for good pitches. We’ve got Slick for the Meh, Feh and Bleah is a new way for us to vent, er, publish snippets of bad pitches and give some diamond in the rough pitches a quick makeover.
We’ll be as anonymous as possible, but as Jeremy Pepper notes on his smart, DIY pitch blog, “hey, they want blog coverage, they got blog coverage.”
MEH: The trademark in our post headline is not to stave off a flood of cheap knockoffs. We’re wondering aloud if there’s room for legal bric a brac in headlines.
A news release announcing yet another technology partnership between two companies landed in our inbox recently. The only thing keeping me from nodding off was the visual cacophony of seeing two ® registered trade mark symbols in the headline. Can we kill the superscript and subscript in headlines?
FEH: A fourth estate friend sent us what she feels to be the first bad pitch of the year. The first sentence tells us why: “Sometimes death does have its rewards…and an amazing view!” OK, it’s out of context. But what context makes that sentence, in all of its exclamatory glory, anything more than ham-fisted?
Death! A wise journo prof is quoted as having said: “you get 3 exclamation points your entire life, so use them wisely.” Amen.
BLEAH: One of the longest, loudest headlines sent our way in quite awhile came via news release recently.
FACED WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT, YET UNPREDICTABLE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN EVER, NEW BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN CALENDAR EMPOWERS VOTERS TO TAKE ACTION
Before you cut, paste and Google to find the guilty party, we'll vouch for them. They’re sponge-worthy.
We’re all for calendars and think this one is a diamond in the rough. So in a well-intended act, we’re submitting this edited version for your consideration.
CLIENT’S New Bipartisan Campaign Calendar Empowers Voters to Take Action
We like this version more because it…* was written by us (duh)* is shorter* does not SHOUT IN ALL CAPS and is easier to read as a result* uses the client’s name.
Moral Ambiguity uploaded by Thomas Hawktags | public relations | PR | media relations | media | good pitch | bad pitch | bad pitch blog
Counting clips is counter-productive but look who's counting... it's often the clients. Clients need to heed Richard here, perhaps more than the pr practitioners. Strategy is supposed to come first - value that's worth more than ink. The challenge is to find the partners/clients that do their bean-counting measurement based on more than hits. I agree, let's hit everyone who calls them hits from now on.
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