Press Release Grindhouse

I just saw Grindhouse, the new film by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriquez. It made me think about work.

Press releases are the PR industry's version of exploitation films: they're mass produced, cheesy, low budget, and jam-packed full of crap. But dress them up to look sexy enough and you can fool quite a few people in thinking that they're worthwhile.

This of course made me think about Tom Foremski's bloody diatribe Die Press release! Die! Die!Die!. He has a good point, at least the part about needing to change things up. I'm not sure his suggested optimized, tagged, super indexed, information resource is totally feasible or even possible quite yet.

A couple of weeks ago Chris Parente, managing director of Strategic Communications Group published an entirely different take , in MarketingProfs.com: 'Call off the Funeral, the Press release Is Alive and Well!'. Chris would have us believe that its not press releases that are bad but bad PR practitioners that give press releases a bad wrap. And you know, he's not wrong either.

In fact everyone in our space has blogged about the death of and/or the rebirth of the press release (check out what my colleague Bob Geller has to say. Good stuff.). Regardless of the value of the debate, I think everyone is missing the point.

You know what Press Release? You can stay. Maybe we carve you up. Maybe you get shoved into a corner.

To quote from my favorite Russ Meyer flick: You really should be AM and FM, Press Release. You one-band broads are a drag!