The staff of The Onion’s AV Club took their annual trip to the All Candy Expo 2008. A trade show, the expo features thousands of candy manufacturers hoping to impress the corporate buyers who make up the majority of attendees. In addition to the buyers, though, are the media reps looking for a – pardon the pun – sweet story. People like the guys from the AV Club.
Reading this story, I wanted to bang my head against the desk a couple of times when I ran across instances of corporate reps missing excellent opportunities to make a good impression on the AV Club reporters, and even at times seemingly going out of their way to make a bad impression on them.
Check this out:
Plenty of tight-faced, brusque dudes in suits were just there as a matter of business; their unit-shifting just happens to take place in the world of blessed sugar. And not all of them were friendly to mere media types who weren’t likely to change their convention-sales bottom line: One small-company rep rushed up to greet us, asked “Who are you with?” and when he heard “The media,” turned around and walked off without another word.
Can you believe that? The kind of media exposure that the AV Club represents is priceless. THOUSANDS of young, affluent media-savvy people read the publication. You’d think that this would be a great opportunity to spread the word about your product to a very receptive audience.
Here’s another great example of what not to do:
And speaking of candy denial… While most All Candy Expo booths give away bite-sized samples of live and upcoming product, and others hand out mini- or full-sized versions of their packaged treats to take home, virtually all the booths had giant wall displays of new product, with signs saying “Samples only, do not take,” or something similar. Not the folks at Bartons. Their giant wall o’ chocolate was entirely unrestricted by signs, tape, or glass, leading us to believe we could actually sample the wonders of Mojito Chocotini bars and Pomegranate Exquisite Truffles. But as soon as we touched the product, two suited sales reps rushed over to snap at us to put the stuff down. They were apparently so irked at our grabbiness that they refused to discuss their product line with us, and all further questions were answered snappishly and with condescension.
Brilliant thinking there, Bartons. Piss off reporters from a publication catering to the kinds of audience who would no doubt enjoy pricey chocolate/alcohol confections. Enjoy the fall-out from this one.
I’m astounded at the behavior of these people. Each reporter that they snub is one lost opportunity to spread the word about their products to thousands, even millions of people. And these people will remember all about Barton’s candy and how rude they were to the representatives of one of their favorite periodicals. And they’ll tell other people, too. They’ll Twitter, they’ll blog, and they’ll have a great story to tell their friends every time they see Barton’s candy on the shelf.
These reps need media training. Hell, they need their heads examined. Were I one of these guys, not only would I have spoken with the press, I would have sent them home with as much candy as they could carry and an open invitation to contact me if they ever want to do a contest with their readers, or pretty much anything else that might promote my product.
People who are going to be in contact with the public need media training. What’s more, they need permission and motivation from their higher-ups to evangelize their products, and to not slap opportunity in the face when it presents itself.
What about you, reader? Do you have any stories about people willfully or mistakenly flubbing opportunities for good publicity? Share them in the comments section.
May 23, 2008 -
Posted by
Matt Staggs |
Journal |
all candy expo, av club, bad publicity, Barton's, candy, mistakes, pr, publicity, stupid |
4 Comments
More horror stories than I even want to recall. I worked as a reporter for years and often wanted to scream in someone’s face, “HEY! I’m TRYING to give you FREE advertising. If you’re not going to help, at least try to stay out of the way.”
And, you’re right, you never forget it and you tell everyone about it repeatedly for years. These days with blogs the damage can be even quicker and more deadly.
I’m not sure why training is necessary, frankly. If someone doesn’t understand this pretty basic relationship I’m not sure they should be in the business of representing products. It ain’t rocket science.
It’s also a good rule of thumb to just be nice to everyone. You never know who someone is and what connection they may have. They could be the son of someone who can buy a zillion billion of your product.
Oh, Patsy, you’ve said a mouth full. I worked as a reporter for a long time, too, and was always amazed at what people could do to screw up what would have been an advertising slam-dunk.
I think that some training – maybe coaching is a better word – could be useful, because there are people who do fine talking to regular people but “lock up” when they speak with reporters, and a little encouragement might help. At least they could be taught not to do some of the incredibly stupid things these people did.
I’ve been to the show twice (and the Fancy Food Show as well) and have noticed that there are some companies that simply do not want the media to talk about their products. And so I don’t.
Some companies get it … some are coming around.
In all fairness though, it’s easy to call companies out about their bad treatment because it’s so far and few between and easy to contrast with the norm.
Cybele, Thanks so much for coming by! I’ve bookmarked your own site for future reference – I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth, myself.
I think that those companies probably deserve calling out because of how much their behavior contrasts with the norm.
I appreciate your comment, and am glad to hear of how uncommon this behavior is.