1. Ben

   Man, that’s so ridiculous. And wack.

   May 10th, 2009

2. Sean O'Byrne

   Hi Benn,

   My name is Sean O’Byrne and I’m the digital PR director at Mark communications.

   I just wanted to extend a heartfelt apology from my team and I for the huge blunder in pitching to you a completely irrelevant story. It’s been really gutting for me to see our well thought out processes to engage the socialsphere fall down so completely on this occasion.

   There is absolutely no excuse at all. I am truly sorry.

   But if you will permit me, I’d like to give you some background about Mark to demonstrate the impact this blunder has on and why I feel so bad about it.

   I’ve just recently started at Mark to set up their new digital PR division having already worked as a digital PR Account Director for over 3 years in previous agencies. Over those 3 years I was involved in developing a series of strict processes to engage with the socialsphere including hyper relevancy – making sure that every pitch it 100% worked and customised for the blogger. I also discovered the preferred way bloggers like to receive content etc. As a result, we’ve been doing some great work with existing clients and slowly building the division.

   I truly prided myself on our great record with bloggers, the fact that we never ever spam and ultimately worked within best practices 100% of the time. Our processes even resulted in many bloggers emailing us to tell us how refreshing it was to work with such professional PRs who really got social media.

   Soon after I started, I began a training module here for the PRs to understand best practice in pitching to bloggers and engaging the blogosphere in general. It stressed the constant need to stay relevant and understand your media target and of course be transparent.

   Unfortunately, the pitch mentioned in your post occurred during a two week period when I was overseas and not able to oversee the communication being sent out to bloggers by our newly trained publicists, which I would normally do. Mistakes happen, especially when implementing new processes and this one has cost us dearly.

   It’s come as a shock both to me and the publicist in question. Especially since we placed huge amounts of pride in our online reputation and relationships with bloggers.

   Once again, I’m very sorry this has happened. It reflects badly on us as an agency and our client. The only upside is that it’s probably given us the wake up call to be even more stringent about our processes at all times.

   If you had the time and the inclination, I would love to extend an invitation for you to come into Mark (we’re in Surry hills) and speak to our PRs about your experiences as a blogger and why it’s always so important to remain relevant and targeted.

   Your sincerely

   Sean

   May 13th, 2009

3. Benn

   @Sean – apology accepted and thanks for your response. Unfortunately, these things do happen, and I think your response was more than humble. New staff, new process, relatively new medium and these things can happen.

   I’ll be in touch.

   May 14th, 2009

4. Dave Lloyd

   Oh my goodness – who do you think you are?? Your whole blog and website survives on stories that PR agencies and people who want to give themselves self promotion (including yourself thinking you are an authority on all subjects that relate to lifestyle) yet when you get a press release that arrives on your desktop that doesn’t excite your daily twitter (please get a life) you decide to turn on the very industry that keeps you alive….

   As a PR company I would have thought this was their job to release all stories to as many media outlets as possible, although I do admit I am a humble normal person who reads newspapers (a lot more in touch with reality than your-self proclaimed reality – yes even the telegraph the people paper) and actually realizes that newspapers also like yourself rely on these press releases for most of their stories, and even though you seem to think you are above the normal process of information dissemination, aka press releases and you obviously think that you should only be sent the important stories that suit your agenda or whatever it might be that you wish to twitter on any given day I would not have thought you were that important that a PR company would have to filter the information that it sends you….!!

   Who on earth do you think you are to put yourself on this pedestal where you should be spared the so called spam otherwise known in the PR world as press releases or stories to the public so that they only give you the stories you actually care about!! I have actually only stumbled upon your blog by accident and am as equally appalled by your terrible story/attack on a PR agency and its staff, as I am by the weak reply from the self proclaimed PR expert from Mark Communications Sean, who had the complete lack of back bone to apologise for providing you with the very information that keeps your useless and self appreciating blog alive! I thought your article was weak but this spineless member of the Marks team makes you look like Chopper Read in Pentridge with his complete lack of support and conviction in not telling you that you should have the integrity to source a real story, rather than be a dog that bites the hand that feeds you!!

   You should both be ashamed of yourselves and decide if you actually want to be a professional part of the industry that you have chosen or if you would rather be one of those professional radio talk back callers who just like to call the other so called authority on life Ray Hadley to whine about the insignificant injustices in life! Seriously if you get a story on a subject and don’t want to use spare us intelligent people the pain of reading you whinge about not having the C cups you obviously deserve and press delete like the rest of us do.

   And Sean if you really think you are the PR guru you profess to be you should be ashamed of yourself and the disservice that you have given your company by given this fools column any credibility by replying and denigrating your company by apologizing to him for receiving the press releases that his shameful blog survives on. Surely you should know better about putting a positive BS spin on your stories especially if they relate to your company and its clients rather making your company look like amateurs when they are doing exactly what you expect a PR company are expected and employed to do.

   Sean if you want to be a subservient ass kisser to a nobody like this guy I think it is time you found a new career!!

   May 14th, 2009

5. Ben Phillips

   This one really got to Dave Lloyd

   May 14th, 2009

6. Kate Kendall

   @Dave Lloyd that’s the most entertaining post I’ve read all week thanks.

   May 14th, 2009

7. Ray Hadley

   Hi. Ray Hadley here.

   The question that everyone’s asking – “Who is Dave Lloyd”? After the hard hitting expose on A Current Affair last night, we want to know who he is, what does he really do & get his side of the story.

   We’ll be back after the break to discuss… & the lines are open for Dave to get in on the conversation & let us know.

   May 14th, 2009

8. Tony Mc

   Sean O’Brien

   May I be so bold as to suggest to you that you need to go down to K-Mart and purchase a few Plastic Spines as the last one melted due to pressure something you simply can’t handle.

   As for Mark What a poor excuse you are for a man. You need to get a Manager so that you don’t handle yourself anymors.

   May 15th, 2009

9. Kel

   Maybe Dave should read the article on Pulse’s little faux pas while he’s at it? http://www.smh.com.au/national/black-day-for-ivy-league-20090514-b4tr.html?page=-1

   May 15th, 2009

10. Benn

    Hi Dave – for the clarity of those involved in the comments so far and transparency for the readers, whom do you represent? Are you a involved in the marketing/communications/advertising industry?

    You seem to be quite angry about this. I’m not quite sure why. Talking lifestyle for a minute, the only lifestyle my blog reports on is my own, it’s certainly not an authoritarian’s point of view.

    Your comments as a “humble newspaper reader” on what you believe PR companies should do is incorrect IMHO – the scattergun theory doesn’t work effectively in the blogosphere, and I guess this is where people like Sean and myself sit as experts of some sort. Communicating with bloggers is very different to how press releases are in fact disseminated. PR companies build rapport with bloggers because the audience of a blogger is extremely targeted, and if you have a product that can be ‘advertised’ in a blog of relevance, it can be quite powerful. Because the Hollywood Tape release was so far off target, I decided to pass comment. Now, I can’t speak for all PR companies and the way they work, but the above is tried and tested and works.

    Whilst perhaps at most 0.5% of my content is PR driven, it will be done about products I truly like and am happy to discuss. So, to your point about the fact that my ‘shameful blog’ is surviving on this content, I have to disagree. I’m not biting any of the hands that feed me, as I don’t receive cash or products for comment. Bit disappointed now, I could have received some free Hollywood Tape had I pushed the point. Not sure what I would have done with it though.
    And as for twitter? If you think it’s a waste of time, that’s fine. I’ve had some great successes using it. As have many others, and do you know what ? Many haven’t too. These people are generally those who haven’t sat down to learn about the way to use it and are simply telling people that “I had a chicken salad sandwich for lunch. It was tasty.”

    At the end of the day, it’s my blog. You can choose to read it or not – and same goes for the other readers. I’ll write about what I like and do so for my own purposes. Feel free to delete me from your bookmarks or RSS, it doesn’t worry me too much. I’ll continue to work hard in this industry and enjoy the successes and the occasional failures that come with it – and with those failures come the learnings, like in Sean’s case, will only make their efforts stronger.

    May 15th, 2009

11. Dave King

    Have to say this seems like a reasonably large reaction (and reaction to the reaction) to a couple of errant press releases. I would think that as digital practitioners we often make these kinds of very small errors (and, god forbid, even make worse ones). A lot of the rules, processes, strategies etc are still being worked out, and certainly people have different degrees of tolerance to less than relevant content. But, Ben, I’d be cautious, working in the industry yourself, about putting yourself above it all and beyond reproach (I also got *very over* agencies calling each other out of micro stuff a few years ago).

    Dave.

    May 15th, 2009

12. Emma

    The Mark Communications team are excellent operators (I have dealt with them on both sides of the fence) and Ben, your blog is very entertaining. In summary, you are both really good at what you do.

    I think it’s fair play to take the piss out of PRs when they screw up their targeting but even so, it seems they’re still providing lots of juicy content for media, even if it is not the client coverage they were gunning for.

    What with Pussygate and now Boobygate, it’s been a big week of highly publicised PR ‘fails’ and yet here I am reading the intro para to a release that may not otherwise have hit my screen. I do have C-Cup boobs and as such, Mark have inadvertently communicated with their target audience.

    I think there is a whole new sector of coverage emerging where journos cover PR stuff-ups and still mention the brands involved.

    Is all publicity good publicity? If so, maybe these so-called failures are still gaining traction in a way that generates much more word-of-mouth than PR successes.

    May 15th, 2009

13. Benn

    Hi Dave,

    I receive a fair amount of content about people pushing their wares, and am pretty tolerant in general. However, as I noted before, this one was bemusing and the response was posted in response as I was greatly surprised with what had happened – primarily because it’s Hollywood Tape, and the sheer lack of relevance was well… amusing.

    Now, it’s been covered on Mumbrella, discussed in other forums (some discussion on Twitter at least). As for being beyond reproach, we can agree to disagree there, for these two reasons at least:
    1. I had made an initial tweet about the first release, and if the brand was being monitored, perhaps it should have been picked up before I got a second release a week later.
    2. More importantly, the criticism contained a degree of constructiveness in advising what a better approach in managing blogger/PR relations may be.

    Mistakes happen every day, and at the end of the day, this forces you, me and others to sharpen their game and ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen, and serves a lesson as to what can happen.

    BTW – I do like your business/collective name.

    May 15th, 2009

14. The Claw

    Benn if you can’t think of any embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions that this tape could rescue you from, you’re not trying hard enough.

    May 15th, 2009

15. Danny D

    I have dealt with Mark Communications on a number of occasions and it comes as no surprise that they would make a blunder like this. After all, this is the same team of people who released a ‘joke’ press release stating that Oprah Winfrey’s staff had been killed by anthrax.

    http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=322513

    I also wonder why Sean took to posting an apology on the blog and not sending it directly to the blogger. I would hardly consider this a sincere apology but rather a transparent attempt to try and save face.

    Oct 23rd, 2009

16. Benn

    @Danny D – Markson Sparks is not the same entity as Mark Communications.

    Oct 23rd, 2009

17. Danny D

    Markson is owned by Max and Mark by Rolene his ex wife. The blunder happened around the time of their seperation when she was setting up her own company. The people responsible for the Oprah blunder are the same people working under Rolene at Mark Communications.

    Oct 24th, 2009

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