I heard something this week that reminded me that even big, highly paid agencies make mistakes.
Avril Lavigne came to Racine this week.
Who's that, you ask? Unless you're the parent of an 8-12 year old girl, or a "skater" (skateboarder), you've probably never heard of her.
She's one of those singers who wears far too much eye makeup and tries to look perpetually drugged up in all of her publicity stills. She speaks to the heart of the pre-teen girl set and makes the skater hearts go ballistic with unrequited adoration. You know the type.
She's also had two, maybe three hit songs.
She's currently reaching out to her fans by touring the country, not doing concerts, but holding free special events where she appears and does 2-3 songs in malls or other public venues. I suspect that her goal is to gather a couple of thousand screaming teens together with her in the center so the kids feel like they're not alone in their love for her and buy more of her CD's. Not a bad publicity strategy!
This past week she played the fabulous Regency Mall in Racine Wisconsin. Later she went to Milwaukee and did the same thing in the Petit Ice Arena, another location not well known for gatherings of this type.
Since this is a somewhat unusual activity for performers, her announcement got carried in the newspapers and on the radio.
I heard them talk about her on our lead AM station in town. There, in the middle of her 15 minutes of fame on a 50,000 watt blaster station, they gave the basic information - she'll be playing in the Petit at 3:00.
Then they started joking about the location - an ice arena where it's perpetually 40 degrees air temperature is somewhat of an odd place to gather music fans.
But one of the DJ's asked a normal question - "what does it cost to get in?"
Here they were, on live drivetime radio, with probably 10,000 listeners, re-reading the media release, only to find that cost was never mentioned.
Oops!
It didn't reflect well on Avril and her big-budget publicity company. That's not the kind of 15 minutes of fame that you want to have.
In the interest of preventing you from blowing your chance at fame, here's a checklist of things that you should watch for in a media release that announces an upcoming event.
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Of course, this presumes that your planning for the event is complete (the location actually is reserved, plans are set, the dignitaries are booked, etc.)
Double check to ensure that:
1. Date, time, place are correct
2. Admissions cost is accurately explained. (If it's free, make sure that it not only is mentioned, but prominently featured. Free is a differentiating point that often deserves more than a sentence mention)
3. Invited dignitary names are included, correctly spelled, and carefully reviewed for priority order (everyone wants their name shown first. One way to look at this process is to ask yourself: since only one can be listed first, which dignitary is the one that is the most dangerous to your cause if they get angry?)
4. Does your headline sell the event, or just describe it? ("Chess club to meet at 4 on Thursday" doesn't have near the power of "Local Chess Champions Offer Free Instruction Session")
5. Are event sponsors included, again in priority order?
6. If parking or transportation is an issue, is that covered?
7. Where can people get tickets?
8. Do you provide contact information in the body of the release so that it gets run in the article?
9. Are registration / reservation deadlines and consequences covered adequately?
10. Will food be provided or should people bring their own?
11. Are inclement weather plans adequately explained?
12. If a phone number is included, have you called it to make sure that it actually goes through to the right place? (I once didn't do this test. I put an 800# in a nation-wide ad, having been assured that it was mine, only to find out when the ad ran that the phone company hadn't done it properly, so I didn't really own the number and none of the calls came to me. And what was worse, out of coincidence, the number actually rang at one of my clients. Never again...)
13. Has everything been triple-checked for spelling, accuracy and selling language.
For a complete set of checklists to help you arrange all aspects of any special event, plus a complete seminar on how to plan and promote special events see How to Plan and Promote Sizzling Special Events
And for more information on how to write media releases check out Creating Powerful Press Releases: 11 Steps to Creating Press Releases That Get Printed
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