An executive over at Brandlink Communications got himself in deep trouble recently.
The firm apparently pitched a blogger, who responded rudely to them. The VP, in an exchange with the PR person dealing with the blogger, emailed "What a f*cking b*tch!" The big mistake? He hit 'reply all' and the blogger received the email. (by the way, I don't know why I'm replacing the 'i' - as if that somehow cleans up the language, haha).
To make matters worse, in following correspondence, he went on to criticze her (the blogger) for her behavior.
Now, ok, this was a giant clusterf*ck on his part, no question about it.
But I have a lot of sympathy for this guy. I'll tell you why. I've said things in emails that I wouldn't want public. I once delt with a reporter, I won't mention names, that was just beyond rude.
I remember when it happened, I'd been working 12 hours already, and just as my day was about to finish (around eight pm at night), he replied to my earlier email and chewed me out over some small thing - something like he didn't like the words 'news release' in the subject of an email (that wasn't it, but I'm just giving you an example of how small the grievance was, I can't actually remember what the grievance was though).
He went on a bit of a tirade in his email. I really could not understand where all this rage and vitriole was coming from.
I forwarded it to my boss and said something very similar to what the VP said. My words were something to the effect "This guy is a total asshole. I don't know if I can deal with him. I'm about to lose it on him."
Now, I made sure that the reporter's email address was not on the email I sent to my boss, so there was no danger of a 'reply all'. My boss was great, he said 'Agreed, totally unacceptable. If you want to cut ties you've got my backing to do so."
I think I spent about 30 minutes just fuming in my office before deciding what to do. Who the f*ck did this guy think he was? What gave him the right to dump on me for no reason? Here I am killing myself in my job and he thinks just because I'm a PR person he can take his bad mood out on me?
After ranting and fuming for a while, I returned his email. You know what I told him?
I apologized for any inconvenience I caused him, promised that in the future I would follow processes more to his liking, and appreciated his feedback.
In reality I wanted to punch the guy in the face (and I'm not a violent person) that's how offensive I had found his email earlier. Yet, I sucked it up, and did my job. I didn't burn the relationship. In fact, he apologized for his behavior in his return email and actually covered our story.
While it's hard in those situations, the best technique for remaining cool is what's called a paradigm shift. You can't take things personally. You have to imagine that there are things you just don't know that could be causing the reaction. For instance, in my case, maybe the reporter just found out that his wife was sleeping with the milkman and I simply happened to catch him shortly after he found that out.
Sometimes you have to just accept that taking abuse, as unfair as it is, is part of the PR job sometimes. And you have to remind yourself that you are getting paid to take that abuse when it happens. Which is also why I feel so bad for PR folks who take abuse from within the companies they work for, because their days can be utterly horrific at times, with both colleagues AND reporters beating them up.
While the PR exec was wrong, I do sympathize with him in this case. I know where he was coming from. All PR folks do.
Hopefully this blows over and his business doesn't suffer too much from it. I also hope that the bloggers don't go after him like a pack of wolves. Just like I took the high road with that reporter long ago, the bloggers should take the high road in this case as well.
The paradigm shift applies to everyone in life, always try to imagine what the other person may be going through that is causing the behavior you find unacceptable. In doing so you will often find that under certain circumstances you not only aren't mad, but actually feel sympathy, or empathy, or pity for them. And you would be shocked at how they respond to you being kind when they are being mean - often it shakes them out of whatever took momentary grip of them and they actually end up apologizing.
Yet, also let all PR folks learn a lesson from this, don't lose control of your emotions on email. I've done this in the past (although I never got burned by it) and now all venting that I do, I try my best to do face to face. Email is just to dangerous for that kind of thing, especially in the age of social media.
The firm apparently pitched a blogger, who responded rudely to them. The VP, in an exchange with the PR person dealing with the blogger, emailed "What a f*cking b*tch!" The big mistake? He hit 'reply all' and the blogger received the email. (by the way, I don't know why I'm replacing the 'i' - as if that somehow cleans up the language, haha).
To make matters worse, in following correspondence, he went on to criticze her (the blogger) for her behavior.
Now, ok, this was a giant clusterf*ck on his part, no question about it.
But I have a lot of sympathy for this guy. I'll tell you why. I've said things in emails that I wouldn't want public. I once delt with a reporter, I won't mention names, that was just beyond rude.
I remember when it happened, I'd been working 12 hours already, and just as my day was about to finish (around eight pm at night), he replied to my earlier email and chewed me out over some small thing - something like he didn't like the words 'news release' in the subject of an email (that wasn't it, but I'm just giving you an example of how small the grievance was, I can't actually remember what the grievance was though).
He went on a bit of a tirade in his email. I really could not understand where all this rage and vitriole was coming from.
I forwarded it to my boss and said something very similar to what the VP said. My words were something to the effect "This guy is a total asshole. I don't know if I can deal with him. I'm about to lose it on him."
Now, I made sure that the reporter's email address was not on the email I sent to my boss, so there was no danger of a 'reply all'. My boss was great, he said 'Agreed, totally unacceptable. If you want to cut ties you've got my backing to do so."
I think I spent about 30 minutes just fuming in my office before deciding what to do. Who the f*ck did this guy think he was? What gave him the right to dump on me for no reason? Here I am killing myself in my job and he thinks just because I'm a PR person he can take his bad mood out on me?
After ranting and fuming for a while, I returned his email. You know what I told him?
I apologized for any inconvenience I caused him, promised that in the future I would follow processes more to his liking, and appreciated his feedback.
In reality I wanted to punch the guy in the face (and I'm not a violent person) that's how offensive I had found his email earlier. Yet, I sucked it up, and did my job. I didn't burn the relationship. In fact, he apologized for his behavior in his return email and actually covered our story.
While it's hard in those situations, the best technique for remaining cool is what's called a paradigm shift. You can't take things personally. You have to imagine that there are things you just don't know that could be causing the reaction. For instance, in my case, maybe the reporter just found out that his wife was sleeping with the milkman and I simply happened to catch him shortly after he found that out.
Sometimes you have to just accept that taking abuse, as unfair as it is, is part of the PR job sometimes. And you have to remind yourself that you are getting paid to take that abuse when it happens. Which is also why I feel so bad for PR folks who take abuse from within the companies they work for, because their days can be utterly horrific at times, with both colleagues AND reporters beating them up.
While the PR exec was wrong, I do sympathize with him in this case. I know where he was coming from. All PR folks do.
Hopefully this blows over and his business doesn't suffer too much from it. I also hope that the bloggers don't go after him like a pack of wolves. Just like I took the high road with that reporter long ago, the bloggers should take the high road in this case as well.
The paradigm shift applies to everyone in life, always try to imagine what the other person may be going through that is causing the behavior you find unacceptable. In doing so you will often find that under certain circumstances you not only aren't mad, but actually feel sympathy, or empathy, or pity for them. And you would be shocked at how they respond to you being kind when they are being mean - often it shakes them out of whatever took momentary grip of them and they actually end up apologizing.
Yet, also let all PR folks learn a lesson from this, don't lose control of your emotions on email. I've done this in the past (although I never got burned by it) and now all venting that I do, I try my best to do face to face. Email is just to dangerous for that kind of thing, especially in the age of social media.
The difference btw your situation and this one is that Brandkink sent an unsolicited, unresearched and wildly inappropriate pitch to Jenny (to add insult to injury, the pitch was full of spelling & grammar errors). She did what she always does in these situations, sent them a link to Wil Wheaton collating paper.
ReplyDeleteThat's when pantyjose made the biggest mistake of his life. When called on his inappropriate and unprofessional 'fucking bitch' response, his apology was of the 'sorry I broke your jaw but you made me hit you' variety. In short, he displayed an arrogant sense of entitlement that not only reflected on his own narcissistic immaturity, it reflected on his employer.
Brandlink, instead of issuing a simple, 'sorry!' has made the situation worse. Frankly, none of th PR folk (hate to call them professionals) involved in the debacle come off well in the exchange.
*BrandLink* and *the*
ReplyDeleteI blame my iPad. *sigh*
Thanks for the comments csoar. I can't disagree with you in the sense that sloppy pitching can lead to issues such as this.
ReplyDeleteAnd his response was definitely inappropriate, no getting around that in any way.
But without knowing his history of interaction with the media, I still have a hard time condemning him to PR purgatory over a single event. For all I know this was a one-time flip out (people do lose their cool now and then - and when they do, they suffer the consequences, such as looking like a bad PR professional in this case).
And while I definitely am not defending the behavior (in fact the opposite - this is an example of what can happen if you lose your cool)
I do have to say though that I would have found the Wil Wheaton link an unprofessional response that exhibits a similar level of insensitivity and rudeness.
The stated content on the Wil Wheaton link of "You’ve been sent to this page because you offered a blogger a photo of some random celebrity standing near some product that no one actually gives a shit about." is a pretty harsh response. It's about as close to a 'Fuck you' as you can get.
But perhaps if I followed that blog I'd find that the blogger's personality was such that said response would be taken within a different context than someone like myself might see it upon first glance.
In addition, one has to be aware that there are different rules in the blogosphere than in traditional media. If a reporter had sent a PR person a response such as mentioned above, they would likely get in a lot of trouble for unprofessional conduct (assuming the other party made a stink over it).
All to say, PR pros have to always step back and respond in a calm and collected manner, regardless of the circumstance. Anything less does nothing in helping you tell your story.
I still think there's the possibility that this is an over reaction on both sides of the exchange.
The only difference however is that PR folks have to realize that when a situation like this unfolds you are never going to win by fighting, so don't even bother trying (especially if you are in the wrong to start with).
And if you have a blogger who specifically likes to write about PR pitches, then you are nuts to get in an confrontation with them because you know they are just going to post it for everyone to see.
Thanks again for the comment!