Embargoes gone in a blog-happy world? Phooey!
March 4th, 2008 by Doug
There has been a lot of thought by PR folks into the notion of embargoes, and if they are meaningless, in the so-called freewheeling Wild West of the blogosphere. Brian Solis documents a good discussion with Robert Scoble here.
Conventional paranoia– er, wisdom- stated that bloggers are largely not journalists, and wouldn’t honor embargoes, either because they didn’t know the rules of journalism or were gleefully ignoring them.
Recent events (promoting a news release that a client, Prospero, had been acquired by Mzinga) have proved what I have learned to become the case: that bloggers who want to deal with company news on a regular basis will honor embargoes, or risk losing the relationships– and the scoops. Sounds a lot like “old” journalism, right?
Allen Stern of Center Networks spells it out in a recent post. He “gets it,” (I know, jargon, but it;s short jargon). He honored the recent embargo, to the letter, posting at 12:00 a.m. Monday morning, the moment the embargo ended.
Want to know something else? TechCrunch, a site we feared might become the poster-blog for “getting it first” and breaking embargoes under the leadership of Michael Arrington, honored the embargo as well.
Again, isn’t this like old journalism? And anyway, isn’t the fear of certain outlets and embargo breaking ways old hat as well? CNET held that crown that TechCrunch was supposed to take, didn’t it?
An amusing side note: Michael Arrington recently complained on Twitter about BusinessWeek breaking an embargo. He was whining and carrying on, but he had a point: it’s not blogs, it could be anyone that breaks an embargo, and embargoes are still in full effect.
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March 5th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Doug - I too was amazed at how nicely everyone “played in the sandbox” and honored our “Mzinga Acquires Prospero news embargo. This was particularly impressive given the number of bloggers we reached out to.
At a breakfast yesterday, analyst firm, Sirius Decisions, said that 22 of the to 100 news sites are now blogs. It makes sense that if the 22 want to continue to maintain relationships with the companies they cover - or risk not being pre-briefed - they will behave like traditional media. BTW, love the Arrington tweet - he obviously has taken a lot of grief about breaking embargoes in the pas!
March 5th, 2008 at 8:35 am
We had a similar experience back when we launched Veveo. They all honored the embargo.
That being said, I’m still not a fan of the embargo in general. It’s something that should be used sparingly and I think too many companies hang onto a launch date for no other reason then they can.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Thanks Chuck– I have to disagree about the embargo in general. I find it’s more about having a coordinated PR effort- getting as much coverage as possible to hit at once– and also balancing and maintaining relationships with journalists.
That said, if your news is not interesting, there’s no point, and you need more than an embargo to get coverage.
Maybe I’m not actually disagreeing with you– you tell me.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:18 am
In cases when it’s very big news or material an embargo makes sense.
But 9 times out of 10 we’re trying to get coverage on news that may or may not be that exciting. In those cases it’s not news until the day we announce anyway, which means few are going to want a “scoop” when it’s not a big scoop.
So we may be agreeing on this.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
everything’s dead. long live everything.
I always laugh when we decide to do the DEAD post. Everyone wants to quickly point to definite changes to the landscape brought on by one technological innovation or another.
When in reality the DEAD post is usually just a hasty oversimplification. God forbid we should wait a minute to think about the true, more evolutionary, changes these things usually bring about.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
DEAD on, Kevin
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
March 6th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
My colleague Danny wrote a good post about our approach to embargoes that may be of interest: http://inmedialog.com/index.php/archives/embargos-and-how-to-use-them-effectively/
In short, we find them useful whenever a journalist (or blogger, we treat both with equal high respect) could use a little extra time to get the story done. Three key points:
1. We use them sparingly, for highly practical reasons, and never simply to blow air into an otherwise unworthy pitch.
2. Echoing one of Scoble’s comments, we use them to level the field; that is, to give those who demand front-of-the-line status their props without leaving anyone else eating that leader’s dust.
3. We always negotiate them. That is, we don’t extend an embargo without the explicit agreement from the journalist that it will be honoured. As former U.S. president Ronald Regan liked to say, “Trust, but verify.”