My nemesis, the press release
Many, many years ago, I found myself in charge of a public relations department for the first time ever — and my company was about to announce a brand new video game. I wasn’t a stranger to PR: I’d spent years working with the department and, in college, had cut my teeth as a publicist’s assistant. Still, working in communications and being the lowest rung on the PR totem pole is a world different from running the show and crafting a product’s announcement strategy.
Enter the press release.
I distinctly remember sitting on the floor of my father’s brand new apartment during a winter holiday break (his furniture hadn’t arrived yet), repeatedly tapping out words and deleting them as I tried to mock up Babby’s First Press Release.
Finally, I wrote my CEO and laid out my new launch strategy, which, while unconventional, was the only route that I felt could save my sanity and dignity.
We announced our game with a single email, written by me and finessed by our PR agency for specific journalists. The email introduced the new game, its premise, and core features. We included links to embed or download our trailer and art assets. The email was signed by a single person (because it came from a single person’s email address). We included a quote that my CEO actually wrote himself and would have made sense to have been spoken outloud (a rarity, if you’ve ever read the quotes in press releases), and we offered either one-on-one or group interviews with him and the development team for follow-up inquiries.
Nothing ever went out on a wire. We never created a stodgy press release. Our corporate website’s PRESS section, instead, updated with a more general version of the email, announcing to the masses the very same thing we tailored to individuals.
The launch was a success, in part because our product was good and warranted coverage, but also because everything we delivered to the outlets was written in a conversational tone, with regular phrasing and actual quotes that people would be able to speak with their mouths in real life, and that resonated with our target audience: Journalists, and then, the readers of those journalists.
Why?
Because we’re all humans, and we prefer conversational, approachable dialogue. The formulaic approach of a press release is rigid, boring, and bland.
I still dabble in the PR and Communications world, but I am always careful to clarify that while I can write a press release, you’ll be hard pressed to detail an occasion where one should write one instead of literally anything else.
No matter the company, the product its selling, or the audience who consumes it, we are regular human beings who want to be spoken to in a normal, coherent, approachable fashion. If you want to get down to business, cut the buzzwords, and talk to each other — you’ll find you’ll actually make a connection that way.
