I don’t write about companies to embarrass them, so I almost never actually run the company name in the post. Most people will know who this is anyway, but here goes:

BLANK, a premier provider of digital signage and networked media solutions, today announced the addition of team members in the roles of business development, sales, and solutions management.

A GUY joins BLANK as President and will focus on business development and driving further growth and adoption of BLANK’S solutions in the market. Blah blah blah, and furthermore, blah …

The release this week goes on to talk about some other people who have been hired and how excited everyone is. Yippee!!!

What the release doesn’t say, anywhere, is A GUY is replacing DIFFERENT GUY who has been the president and highly visible face of the company for many years. This is the guy who all the company’s clients and business partners know. There’s nothing in the release about the departure, nothing about his choosing to pursue new opportunities. Mutual agreement. Just nothing.

I don’t know what went down, but the guy is highly respected and was front and center at the company’s booth at the industry’s biggest trade show only two weeks ago. By issuing press that ignores the big orange polka-dotted elephant in the room, the company is creating the perception that the departure was unpleasant and that it is no one else’s damn business.

My guess is that’s not really the case at all, and it was more like differences in opinion and direction that weren’t going to get resolved.

When something big happens, that your industry and your clients are going to notice and talk about, don’t try some silly misdirection by celebrating one part of the story and forcing people to draw their own conclusions about the other, more interesting half.

Be open and direct, and the response will be, “Oh! Interesting …” Be evasive or pretend it didn’t even happen, and you create a nice big, dark cloud over your company.

In such a crazily competitive, hard to differentiate industry like this, you need to carefully manage perceptions.

…

A press release came in today from a company that was humping something … about something.

Honestly, I didn’t read it. It looked like too much work.

It wasn’t all that long. Just dense, with type.

The release was all of three paragraphs long, because the person who put it together somehow decided that made sense … or there is poison on the Enter key on his or her keyboard and they just din’t want to touch it. The net result was a wall of type, with the first paragraph containing roughly 100 words. Yup, 100.

Sorry, that looks like way too much work to slog through and digest.

Take a look at how most information is presented in modern media, be that magazines or newspapers. The paragraphs are tight and organized by ideas and messages. You don’t have to pile everything into the first paragraph because it’s ALL so important.

Create some rhythm. Write a tight leading paragraph that is enough to grab people and draw them into the message.

Big blocks of type are like walls, and there’s nothing forcing people to climb them when they can just skip on by and read something else that doesn’t look like so much work.

I have seen multiple references today to what sounds like a very expensive, well-executed landmark installation in New York involving projection systems, 3D and a very famous building.

As much as I would like to get on the subway to get over and see it first-hand, I don’t live in Manhattan, nor do countless people who would like to understand what’s really involved with this installation.

If only the PR company had put together simple visuals. It is soooooo easy to take still photos these days and sooooo easy to shoot and post video on Vimeo or YouTube or whatever.

But there’s nothing. The release I am looking at right now is promoting the Olympics, involves four companies, and is running on PR Newswire. And the most a reader can do is download the logo from one of the companies.

It is astonishing to see so many companies waste opportunities and use press and media relations techniques straight out of 1991. A press release IS content, not just a trigger to hopefully get media organizations to produce content relating to the release.

Dumb beyond words. And expensive dumb.

This is a press release issued today:

Marketing communications firm pressDOOH has developed a special program intended to help industry firms “tune up” their communications in advance of the many digital signage trade shows and related events scheduled over the next few weeks and months.

The “Message Tune-Up” program is aimed squarely at vendors, service companies and network operators looking to gain some marketing notice before and during such events as ISE, Digital Signage Expo, GlobalShop, NAB, Kioskcom/The Digital Signage Show and ScreenMedia Expo. The program offers quick reviews, recommendations and updates on marketing and press materials for companies heading into the show season, as well as fast turnarounds on newly crafted material.

“I have been going to these events for years, and know at least a couple of things will happen,” said pressDOOH founder Dave Haynes. “Some companies will remember at pretty much the last moment that they need to get out a release or update their hand-outs or mail-outs. So they’ll do it themselves and it will look like it. Others will hire a PR firm and get something cranked out that is polished but utterly pointless, because the PR writer had no idea about the industry or what the audience was actually interested in.”

pressDOOH is temporarily relaxing its minimum engagement policy for clients as a way to help a wider range of clients who don’t need a full communications program for the  shows, but do need two or three hours to get their material reviewed, tweaked and polished up by a fresh, experienced set of eyes. The most effective material for distribution is work that is clear, concise and relevant to the targeted readership.

“I think it would be refreshing change for everybody in the business if the big blitz of press releases and marketing materials that’s about to start was characterized by substance, effective messaging and far less hype,” said Haynes. “This industry is now at a level of maturity that the target audiences are knowledgeable and a little jaded. Their tolerance for BS gets lower every year.”

pressDOOH is a copywriting and marketing strategy firm working specifically in the digital…

DailyDOOH is probably the most widely read and influential news portal/blog on the digital signage and digital out of home sectors, run by Adrian Cotterill in England, but including correspondents all over the place. Adrian and his North American Editor Gail Chiasson have kindly reproduced much of the work I have sent along to them from clients who have done this or that.

It was nice to sit down this morning and read my services were cited as one of the Best of 2009 in the industry.

We don’t necessarily ‘grok’ (i.e understand) all the consultancies popping up all over the place or even figure out how they will all stay in business. There’s a lot of unemployed people looking for a new ‘gig’ and perhaps consulting looks like an easy option- we wouldn’t necessarily recommend many of them either but there is one place that we do throw work and that’s in Burlington just outside Toronto. That’s the home / work office of David Haynes who has made writing a press release an art form. When PressDOOH has written or massaged a press release the job of journalist is made so much easier. If only more people used his services.

Thanks very much Adrian and crew for the kind words and recognition. I have only been doing this since the summer 0f 2009 but the response has been very strong. Many companies seem to put little value in effective communications, and those that do reap the benefits of copy that people will actually read and fully understand.

I already have clients as far away as India and do much more than press releases (I am writing a book for one), but always eager to take on new work.