This year’s PRSA conference is being held in the Detroit Marriott, which is connected to General Motors’ global headquarters. We’re right on the river and I can literally see Canada from my hotel room window. GM is also the premier sponsor of the conference and the place is swarming with their communications staff members, of which I learned there are 500 around the world. This morning, Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman of global product development, addressed the attendees. First of all, this guy is a terrific presenter and an unrelenting believer in the power of PR. And he practices what he preaches. Bob writes a blog for GM called the FastLane. When asked how to drive traffic to a corporate blog, he said he didn’t have a formula for that, but instead spoke to the importance of executives doing their own writing. He said, “No one wants to read pre-chewed, pre-digested information with a heaping side of corporate arrogance.”
In fact, he spoke a lot about the importance of writing in our field. He said, “The state of writing is deplorable. Nothing gets under my skin more than poor writing.” He talked about how it infuriates him when he sees the phrase, “sneak peak.” He joked, “You mean a stealth mountain?” Ah, a man after my own grammarian heart. I could tell he had at least 37 more examples, but held back. Rats.
He also accused corporate executives of using too many superlatives in their media materials. This is a conversation we often have with our clients. It’s important to resist the temptation to call a product or service best-in-class, revolutionary, state-of-the-art, etc. Bob said, “Those types of words trigger antibodies in journalists who resent being told how or what to write.” His recommendation, if you must use superlatives, was to do so using phrases like, “It was our intention to create a best-in-class car.” I’ve always felt it was inappropriate to use words in a release that no self-respecting journalist would ever use in an article. But I like Bob’s compromise.