Thursday, April 10, 2008

(Bad) PR Idea of the Week

I swear, I was trying to get my PR mind out of the gutter. After covering vasectomies, then nipple piercings with this feature, I figured this week we could talk about something non-controversial--like Wal-Mart. But then I saw this and couldn't pass it up.

Those #$%$^%! lawyers. They are always making PR so much harder than it needs to be! Take the poor, poor PR people at Del Monte who are just trying to tell the world about their plans to feed dog bones to poor children.

Then the lawyers go and get involved and make them put those lovely (R) and TM marks on every third word. Copyright lawyers awake in cold sweats frequently after nightmares that their company's marks have become the next genericized word like thermos, popsicle, or frisbee.

The problem comes, of course, when your Milk-Bone(R) becomes Milk-BONER in the headline--after some evil email system strips out your special symbols.

I really feel bad for the poor earnest, clueless soul who worked so hard to craft this press release. And since I care, I have a request for them: please, please send us press releases about your other industry-leading, paradigm-breaking Del Monte foodstuff solutions--we see you also offer Meaty Bone(R).

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