Ethical PR

[keirms]

Quick question:

Is it ethical to "bribe" an editor (or one of their staff) of a local newspaper with say... a course of personal training sessions??

We could dress it up as a chance for them to get a taste of our services.

Or would they take offence at that?

Hmmm....

Keir

PS Also posted on www.shell-livewire.org

 

I dont see an issue with that. And after all its only local press. All your doing is trying to interact with the community. You see reporters taking part in an article ( Masage/therapy ) all the time. Whats different about this.

Michael

 

[Amber]

It wouldn't be ethical to bribe them by saying "we'll give you X if you write a glowing review of our business", no. But if you were to simply offer them the opportunity to sample the service and write a feature on it, then there's no problem - happens all the time The only problem with this is that you will have to be prepared for them to give an honest opinion - if you're confident that your service is good, though, that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[CaroCaro]

Yes you can offer them something, but as the others said it does not guarentee you any coverage or a positive write up. They will be offered things all the time and choose what they want to do. You may want to beef it up a bit more, perhaps instead of just offering a straight forward thing, try to sell it in a bit more eg: if you are offering personal training sessions you could linke in to the idea of getting fit for summer or taking part in a fun run. Therefore expanding the coverage opportunities to more than one hit if there progress is covered.

 

[Anonymous]

It is a great way for editor and journalists to interact with your product or service.
Go for it and good Luck.

Louise

 

[keirms]

Thanks, very useful info everyone. PR is a bit of a minefield but I guess sometimes you've just got to take the plunge..

Thanks once again,

Keir