Aug 12, 2008
Do events work anymore?
Over the past 2 weeks my colleagues and I have organised no less than 5 client events – so much for quiet Augusts. Whilst every one can be deemed as a success in the eyes of both clients and those that attended, the amount of effort it took to get a healthy number of journalists to come to the events. And that’s even with the ridiculously high drop-out rate (80% at on event).
Journalists used to look for any excuse to leave the office. The lure of leaving with a goodie bag and a potential story for tomorrow’s pages. So what’s changed?
Well two things in my eyes:
- Firstly, as Paul Stallard points out, journalists are now much more accountable for their time. At a time when newspaper readerships are declining and profit margins are slimming, Editors are having to become more efficient in their use of editorial staff. Champagne lunches are currently on the back-burner.
- Secondly, in the 24/7 connected world we live in journalists are under ever increasing pressure to stay ahead of the curve, hunt down the stories and keep an audience of readers with an unprecedented thirst for information happy. Who can afford to sit through a 2 hour presentation when the greatest story of the 21st century is a PR exec’s email away!
Both reasons are understandable and as PRs we need to adapt to this changing face of journalism and question whether events, in their crudest sense, really do work anymore!
Below is my checklist for events circa 2008 onwards:
- Can a journalist get to the event, get the gist, and return to the office in an hour or less?
- Will the attending journalists leave with a story that they couldn’t get over email?
- Is the story they leave with worthy of the first 5 pages of their publication? If it’s a silly-season survey, best not to hire the Soho Hotel.
- Is there no way the event experience can’t be given to journalists from the comfort of their office i.e. webcasts?
- Will the journalists leave with a goody-bag worth more than 5 times the cost of getting to and attending the event?
Five “yeses” and you’re onto a winner, get that invitation out the door. Just one “no” though and you’ll be sharing the £1k worth of canapes amongst your account team.
Let me know if you have any other guidelines for deciding whether an event is right – both to put on (PRs) or to attend (journalists).
Some good points Dan. I am increasingly finding that I am actually hitting the road rather than organising one big event when we have a mojor announcement to make. It is easier and we get better results by going to the journalist rather then trying to drag them away from their keyboards for any amount of time.