Dear PR - NO, I won't write for free

I've never been one to PR bash but as I've spent the last 18 years of my life employed in that very industry, promoting a plethora of brands, it wouldn't be quite right would it?

But enough is enough and as the number of active UK bloggers goes through the roof the ever desperate, insulting PR requests increase ten-fold. 

I have the benefit of being able to see the situation from both sides of the fence but now it's quite frankly, out of control.

Here's just one example from the 37 PR requests that I received (for just one of my blogs) today. Names and brands have been changed to protect the guilty.

Hi Sian, I have an embargoed press release (below) that I thought would be perfect for your blog. Do give me a call for high-res images or more ideas and high-res images click on link (sic). 

That's not my grammar going astray there...

Press release on snazzy new (embargoed product follows). 

I love it. It's totally me so I ping an email back to say...

LOVE IT. Can you send me a sample so I can have a play and photograph it to the theme of my images?

PR's reply...

Hi Sian, I'm sorry but we have been inundated with requests and are really limited on samples as it's a new product. Is there any way you can work from the image in the release?

This is where I start to get really peeved. You see, I had a release from the same brand yesterday, about another brand new product, that was equally as awesome and equally me, that I would have loved to review. 

Yep, I got the same reply. Inundated with requests, new product, use pics, blah, blah, blah.

Back to today, ANOTHER email lands, from the same brand about ANOTHER new embargoed product that would be perfect for me to feature on my blog. Only this one I don't like but as I'm already half way through my essay of a reply to the suggestion that I review from their press release pic I carry on.

Me...

Dear PR, 

Thanks for coming back to me. I hope that you don't take this the wrong way but there really is little point sending out press releases to bloggers if you aren't willing to follow up with product samples.

We are inundated with coverage requests like this everyday but we are not magazines with publishing houses behind us (even though may of us have more readers).

Saying that you've been inundated by requests so you aren't willing to send me a sample, simply says to me that you don't think my coverage valuable enough to justify the return.

If that is the case, please don't spam me with one sided requests because they will not result in my blogging about your products.

If this is your definition of blogger outreach then you are way off track.

I pinned and mentioned the product in the release you sent yesterday (sorry inundated with product requests again) and it was heavily shared but as my coverage isn't worthy, I've removed the links and pics.

I'm sorry if this comes across as being stroppy, I really didn't intend it to. However, if your policy is to not send out samples to bloggers perhaps you should state that clearly in your releases (along with the option to be removed from your mailing list). Then everyone would know where they stand, you wouldn't be 'inundated with requests' and us bloggers wouldn't have our inboxes flooded with requests to sell our time, space and content for nada.

I'm guessing that you don't work for free, please don't expect us to do the same.

Kind regards, 

Sian

To which I receive a swift reply explaining that the releases are for brand new products, that they really do have limited samples and they just didn't factor in that so many people would be interested.

Like seriously? I'm sure that this global brand isn't paying peanuts to be represented by this agency. Good job they have so much faith in the products they are promoting eh?

To end on a positive note, I was also offered an old product to review, which is nice and current isn't it? They don't want to upset me and really would like me to post a review on my blog.

I bet they do. The last I featured of one of their products my post sat at the top of Google Search for their brand name for a couple of weeks and has to date had over 18,240 views.

Perhaps I'm just being grouchy today? But I'm not convinced. Come on brands / PR's - step it up a gear and stop being so unworthy and insulting.

Rant over.

Out of interest, how many approaches like this one do you get? How do you respond?

Mummy Bloggers Beware

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a PR and sometimes it does makes conversations with my 'blogger head' on a little strained - but not often.

I will admit to having a folder in my mail application called 'Crap PR pitches', but thats for my own enjoyment and not something that I'd ever share.

The 'PR' me has subscribed to a service called Response Source since it launched X years ago and I've always picked up great national coverage for my clients through its daily alerts service. 

I say always but I really mean, always used to, as over the last twelve months or so the alerts have been flooded by bloggers (and I have to say mummy bloggers in particular) looking for free stuff to 'review'.

The bloggers using response source usually state their traffic and number of followers to boost their chances of landing the odd PR freebie or two and sometimes they post two or three requests in a single day - clogging inboxes even more. 

So, I've decided not to renew my subscription to Response Source because it takes so much time out of each and every day to wade through requests from bloggers on the blag.

But why am I telling you this?

Well I just sat down to go through today's 100+ requests and it looks like I'm not the only PR fed up by the constant inbox battering. The first message I looked at goes like this...

Is this the beginning of the end for the mummy blogger? I would love to hear your thoughts.

The Saturday Review - The Gro-Clock

Now this Gro-Clock review is a tricky for me. I have to say that when I saw it in a mag recently that I truly wanted it to be the answer to our five and a half year old early rising problem that is FunnyGirl.

I have a very strong affinity with the guys at Grobag as I (yes little old me) was the PR who successfully launched their sleeping bag to the global masses.

When they came to me they had already had two unsuccessful PR's and they said to me...

"I don't think that you can get press on a baby sleeping bag."

That night I went home armed with the said Grobag. ModelGirl was our mini bambino of the time, she slept OK, woke early, went to bed late. Liked too much boobie action in the middle of the night (a bit like her dad).

I had no hopes - no dreams. Simply zipped her up and off she went.

That night there was no last feed at 11pm and I had the first full nights sleep that I had had since she was born.

I woke, startled and ran into her room fearing tragedy. I stopped listened. Not too hard mind you she was snoring her head off. I looked at the clock - it was 10am. She has been asleep for 13 and a half hours......

So to cut a long story short... How many people do you think that I told about that? From that night on ModelGirl went down to sleep at the same time as DinoBoy (or TotallySonny as he is now know) at around 6.30pm and didn't stir till at least 8 - or 9am the following day.

Whizz forward. ModelGirl is now seven, not far off eight. Funny girl will be turning six before the year is out. She is a morning person. No one else in this house is.....

This causes lots of grumpiness and unhappiness (mostly mine I have to say). It wouldn't be so bad if FunnyGirl didn't have a habit of falling asleep at inopportune moments like...school assembly...in her pizza... at her schools church service....

You get the picture. It drives us all crazy that she makes us get up before 6am and then she sleeps for England at her leisure.

There will be some of you out there saying, well don't let her have a sleep.

Yes... OK, you try and stop her. She has been known to fall asleep mid conversation or even once in a restaurant when I simply turned to the other side of me to pick up a napkin from the floor. I turned back to cut her food...... Gone.

So. You get the picture....... We neeeeeeeeed FunnyGirl to stay in bed. Just for one day, just till it's normal O'Clock. Six would be good. Seven would be nirvana.

I saw the Gro-Clock in a mag and so I called the Gro MD (name dropping if you like) and asked him to send me one. He kindly obliged.

It arrived the next day. "Look" I said to FunnyGirl, "How exciting a special clock for you - that is going to tell you when it's time for you to get up in the morning."

"But I know when to get up mum." she said

"When's that?" I tentatively asked

"Cuddle time!".....

Ahh yes, I knew that well. It was cuddle past darkness in the not time to get up past scale.

But now I had a plan....

Set the time wrong I pleaded to hubby, but he being the more honest (not in PR one of our partnership) said NO. "She's not stupid."

And he was right. So we set the clock. At night time it shows the moon and you set it to whatever time you want it to show the sun. Plenty of opportunities to make them sleep in till lunch time if you so choose but not on hubby's watch!

Off we went to bed.

Day 1 - Funny girl stormed in at 5 something... we had had a later than usual night wrongly thinking that we may actually get to stay in bed till 6... Wishful thinking.

She was so excited that she woke early to wait for the moon picture to change to the sun and after at least an hour of waiting she had to rush in to tell us that her stupid new clock didn't work.

You can't pull the wool over her eyes!

Day 2. By this point I was starting to feel like the wolf in the three little pigs, continually out smarted by those pesky little blighters.

Again, she pounced on us earlier than usual. Fine I thought. This calls for a plan.

So I said to her.... "Tomorrow morning I will meet you at 5am at farmer Giles field where we will pick apples..."....eeeekkkkk Ok so I read too many Ladybird books. She wasn't going to be that easy to out smart and as it happened we kind of settled on a mid ground.

We agreed to a wake up time of 6.30am. That if she wakes before then - that she has to play in her room.

A couple of weeks have passed and the one thing that having the Gro-Clock has taught me is that FunnyGirl had no idea of what time it really was when she woke up.

So to come in to our room to be met by two grumpy parents, really wasn't her fault.

Wake up time - is just like bed time and play time. It's set by boundaries and whilst most five year olds could probably tell you what time they go to bed - how many of them could tell you what time they're supposed to get up?

Gro-Clock taught me a lesson. It taught me that I shouldn't expect my wonderful daughter to live by rules that I don't tell her even exist?

All that aside - it is a pretty cool nursery clock - and I like it.

Gro-Clock RRP £39.99 is MummyTips Must Buy for any young child. I just wish that I had tried it sooner - I may have had a few extra hours sleep in my life! Well done Rob and Ouv, another fab product.