PR disasters part 2: O and the Delhi trip
Last week Smartbrain got an email from a certain computer maker thanking him for agreeing to go to a PC launch in Delhi and asking for passport particulars and further details so they could expedite the visa documents.
A trip to Delhi would be nice (sure beats Singapore) if it weren’t for the fact that up until then, nobody from company D or their PR, O, had contacted Smartbrain at all. In fact, Smartbrain has not done a piece on D (they can be a bit boring and generic) for many, many months.
“Perhaps there’s a mix-up”, Smartbrain’s reply began.
D’s internal PR sent Smartbrain the email from O as an attachment which clearly put down Smartbrain’s name, position and contact details as one of the two journalists going to Delhi. D was profusely apologetic and offered an invitation on the spot, unfortunately it clashed with another interview. D also cc’d O asking for clarification as they needed to get the letters out as soon as possible.
No communication was received from the PR company since. No email, no phone call, no invitation, no clarification, or as they say in the US of A, “no nothing”.
So, dear PR people, please check with a journalist and at least ask him at least verbally if he wants to go on a trip to India first before telling your client that the journalist is going.
Methinks that O was under pressure to provide names and sent their client Smartbrain’s name in panic to pretend that they were on the job doing the work that they were charging D big bucks for. Bad PR! Bad!
Quite why D, a tech company, would hire O is beyond me. O has no other tech clients here and their only regional one they represent, Novell, is barely active in this country.
[…] on from this article, PR O’s country manager called Smartbrain today and apologised for the mix-up, taking full […]
Just got a phone call from O and we’re all chummy again :) Apology accepted.
a big journalistic sin is not checking your facts before you pass comments. O also handles at least 4 or 5 other tech accounts from what i understand. (the number could be bigger by the way)
the fact that you don’t know doesn’t mean that they don’t have.
Not here. Even their highest profile one, Moto, is a combination of Edelman, direct and another local PR for the most part for some reason which I don’t really want to know about. And no, this is not a serious journalistic piece, just a way for me to let of steam. Who’d take someone who calls himself “smartbrain” seriously?