This Week in PR Takes - Week 7

Happy Friday! I hope you’ve adjusted to turning the clocks ahead by now. Friday doesn’t just mean the end of the work week, it also means it’s time for another edition of TWiPRT. I want to take a moment of gratitude before I jump in with this week’s Take of the Week and other hot ones.

Longtime journalist and former PR pro Ed Garsten was kind enough to have me on his podcast to talk about this newsletter and other related PR-topics. If you’re enjoying these takes, please give this a listen/watch as well.

Take of the Week:
This week’s Take of the Week comes courtesy of Blair Huddy. Blair published a take on all of the feels when a competitor issues a major announcement. I simply love the framing around what should we do when this happens.

The answer is nothing.

From a media relations and PR perspective, a competitor issuing major news does not usually create the opportunity to issue any sort of rebuttal. When this is flipped around and your company or client has major news, what are the chances that a competitor will be a part of your announcement? Likely zero. I’d add one point to Blair’s post, which is that reporters don’t want to get in any sort of PR/Marketing/Sales crossfire. They are trying to tell a story that matters to their audience, not get into the nitty gritty of why your product is better than the one they just covered.

The Rest of the Takes:

• Ayelet Noff with deep thoughts about about why PR must embrace AI in order to survive (*disclosure, this goes into a product pitch at the end of the post)

• Rosie Davies-Smith wrote about how one right pitch is better than 100 generic ones

• Julianne Muszynski put together some thoughts on DEI and ESG comms strategies

• Carly Martinetti with a fantastic take on why trade publications matter (Spoiler, it’s because industry decision makers and purchasers read them)

• Agam Shah may not be a PR person and this may not be a take per se, but this is still something we should all be aware of as we work with journalists

• James Gottry jotted down some thoughts on what is PR and what is Marketing

• Simon Ostler wrote about how journalists can spot talking points (*I usually say that journalists want sources, not spokespeople)

• Chase C.’s post about PR people’s parents gave me a nice chuckle

• Grace Williams wrote about some excellent analysis on thought leadership content, and it sheds a lot of light into why PR/Comms people are often asked to help with this process

• Becky Frost commented on Becca Chambers’ post around strategic communications

• Dustin Siggins on why one sentence matters in shaping a story & campaign

• Sarah Kissko Hirsh with an on-point take that push back does not equal laziness

• Colleen Finnegan published a post about the importance of PR, not as an “add on” but as an essential

  
  That’s it for this week’s takes, thanks for reading.

  -Brian

  https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkramer/