wSteve Portigal

I am the founder of Portigal Consulting, a boutique firm that brings together user research, design and business strategy. Portigal Consulting helps clients to discover and act on new insights about how their customers work, play, shop, entertain, eat, and live their lives around products and services.



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wWednesday, May 25, 2005


Today I received this email

From: "Nichole Asher" nichole.xxx at xxx.com
To: steve at portigal dot com
Subject: Hefty Serve 'n Store blog media outreach!

Hi Steve,

Let me start off by saying that I work for an agency that works for Pactiv, the maker of the new Hefty Serve 'n Store interlocking plates & bowls. We are doing online outreach for the product through influential folks like yourself and would like to know if you'd be interested in participating in the product launch.

The company I work for is one of the world's largest PR firms, called MS&L; we're a subsidiary in Ann Arbor, MI called Hass MS&L. My full contact information is at the bottom of this e-mail.

I understand if you are skeptical, so I'm offering to send you links to web sites of other product launches that we've done and the responses showing this is legit. In fact, if you search Google using my company name (Hass MS&L) and the name of one of my co-workers (David.Binkowski@hassmsl.com) you'll find reviews of similar product
launches where these names are referenced.

So let me cut to the chase: Noise Between Stations is *the* place to hear about new products and such, and I think your readers would find the technology behind the interlocking plates interesting. I'm wondering if I can send you information and a sample so you can try the Hefty Serve 'n Store products. They're not on the market yet, but I have an order coming in pre-launch.

The plates and bowls are absolutely free, and in return the only thing my client has asked is that you post a review of the product on your blog.

Please let me know if this is something you're interested in and I will add your name to the fulfillment list today.

Thanks,
Nichole

[contact info deleted]


Now what was that? "Noise Between Stations is *the* place to hear about new products and such" - but this isn't Noise Between Stations, it's my blog, All This ChittahChattah. Pretty hilarious - she could have written "...is a great source of good information" or anything more general, but she had to say that it was "*the* place" - of course, then she was caught sending obvious form letters to different people, and oops, forgetting to change the contact info. We've all sent out dozens of resumes or whatever and we always hope that we make sure to change the info in our form letter, right? It would be a pleasure to work with you at MICROSOFT CORPORATION in REDMOND, WA. Etc.

But this person has it as their job, and they are trying to win over cynical bloggers (hey, by assuming that we're already cynical, right?) so you'd think they'd be able to do a little better than that?

I called her on it and got this

apologize for that, I was reading the wrong blog name due to having multiple windows, so this was actually meant for you @ All This Chittah-Chattah if you are interested.


Anyway, I'm not proud. I'll take the damn Hefty-whatsit and I'll write about it. But I thought the poor PR effort was also blogworthy.

Technorati: , , , , ,


posted by Steve Portigal at 7:21 PM



Comments:
Steve, Victor... it's all the same thing.

I'm not proud either, already ordered my bowls! In fact, that's how I differentiate the old journalism from the new journalism:

OLD: "I can't take those bowls, it's against my CODE OF ETHICS."

NEW: "This PR sent me bowls because she actually thinks people are influenced by this blog. She deserves to waste some bowls on me..."

:-)
# posted by Blogger Victor : 9:10 PM
 
Hey Steve & Victor,
Sorry for the mix up (and delayed response), we've been busy schilling plates on bloggers. ;)

It was an honest mistake, but I'm glad you were able to get over it and are going to try the Hefty Serve 'n Stores. I think you'll like 'em. Don't hesitate to contact me if there are any questions, problems or issues.

And Steve, thanks for posting on our blog!

Dave
# posted by Anonymous David Binkowski : 7:21 AM
 
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