headlines

… and now my nominations for great press release headlines

Having recently mocked crappy headlines and intros used in press releases – those that don’t do their job and get to the point – I thought it was only fair to mention some good ones.

Obviously it’s much more fun to mock and deride, but fair’s fair so I’ve been keeping an eye open for examples of press releases whose headlines sum up the story quickly and concisely.

I’ve noticed that many of the better releases are from larger companies and organisations – those that recognise the value of good communications and employ qualified people to get on and do it.

Press releases from smaller firms are perhaps more likely to suffer from “gild the lily syndrome” – taking a perfectly straightforward story and throwing puns and literary allusions and other flowery language at it until no-one, least of all the journalists at whom it’s targeted, can understand what it’s about.

I suspect that the problem arises because small outfits can’t – or won’t – budget for media relations, so the job of writing press releases is thrown at whichever reluctant marketing assistant or office manager is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Alternatively, the job is seized on by a senior manager who’s bored with doing the accounts and fancies that a bit of “creative” work will add some glamour to their day.

Anyway, here are a selection of releases that won’t drive editors mad trying to work out what the story is. If the story is relevant to a particular publication, the editor will know straight away and if it isn’t, no-one’s time will have been wasted.

From an airline:

British Airways adds First and business class to Moscow flights.

A good example because some press release writers would have leapt on the obvious opportunity to throw in shite puns about “flying high” and “to Russia with love”. This one avoided the temptation with a good, businesslike headline that tells you exactly what the story is.

From a recruitment agency:

Hospitals in the United Arab Emirates are seeking hundreds of nurses from the UK and Ireland.

Perhaps a little on the long side – might not fit in the subject line of the email on screen – but nevertheless, the story summed up in a sentence.

From an online pharmacy:

Innovative Health Goals Facebook App Makes You More Likely to Succeed.

Again, I know what the story is from the headline.  I’d have avoided the initial caps though – makes it harder to read.

From a catering company:

Caterer launches calorie-counted healthy eating range.

Excellent. The story in a sentence. Editors in catering, women’s, health, slimming and food-related publications can all see the relevance to them.

From another catering company:

Chak 89 and ASDA Join Forces to Cook Authentic Curries.

You might not know what Chak 89 is – I’d probably have referred to it as “Indian caterer” – but that’s quickly explained in the subsequent text and anyway you get the gist, that Asda is now selling proper Indian curries.

I can’t overlook though, the later use of a pun about spicing up mealtimes. Geddit?!!? Puns aren’t a good thing in press releases. They show what a clever, witty person the writer is – that’s all they do. Apart from irritate the reader. Clever allusions can be understood by those who are in on the joke but can often go over people’s heads because not everyone shares the same sense of humour – far better to stick to the facts.

From a charity:

Medical charity to roll-out credit card sized USB devices to hold travellers’ medical records.

Sums up what could be a fairly complex technology story in one easy-to-grasp sentence.

From a retailer:

Marks & Spencer Launches Online Maternity Bra Advice Tool

All I need to know, in a few words.

From a train company:

Eurostar launches its first pan-European advertising campaign

Says what it’s about and why it’s newsworthy. Job done.

From the Confederation of British Industry:

Retail sales lower year-on-year but pace of decline stable

Retail sales statistics and trends are massively complex – the fact that something can be up yet on a downward trend (downwardly up?), or down but on a kind of lessening downwardness (upwardly down?) – has never failed to do my head in and leave me rocking in a corner when I’ve been called on to deal with them – but this manages to get the nub of the thing in a few words.

Pic credit: Scottchan, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1701

Crappy press releases of the week: more moans about punny, irritating and meaningless headlines

My latest nominations for press release headlines that don’t do their job and GET TO THE POINT are as follows:

“I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas”

What does this tell us? It seems to be a corruption of a well-known song sung by Bing Crosby. Is the release something to do with Crosby? Something to do with music, certainly? Why the “green”? Is it about the weather – does it mean we’re not expecting snow this year? Who is the “I” who’s dreaming? Nope – I give up.

It turns out that the news is that an ethical retailer has launched its Christmas catalogue. Hence “Green Christmas”. Ethical = “green”, “Green” = like White but not. It’s a play on words! Geddit??!! Aren’t we funny!

For goodness’ sake – why not just get to the point, instead of making the reader play guessing games.

“Wishing you a Merry & Healthy Christmas”

Ooh, it’s an early e-card from a particularly well-organised well-wisher! No. It’s a carol? No, it’s a press release – about pillows, of all things. The angle is that memory foam pillows that help support the neck properly are thoughtful Christmas presents. Again, the writer, for some reason, felt it was best not to say so in the headline.

“Winter Wonderland celebrates its 5th year with a magical new Ice Rink”

This one’s not bad – you do get the gist straight away, which is that the well-known Hyde Park attraction is getting a new ice rink.

But this release misses a trick by using the word “magical” – what on earth does that mean? Does the rink do astonishing card tricks, or make itself disappear? Does it perform the Indian rope trick or cut itself in half? The writer is so busy trying to convey the idea of festive, romantic twinkliness that she forgets to mention until paragraph 3 that the rink will be the biggest of its kind in the UK. Now, that’s quite newsworthy, actually, but the fact’s in danger of being overlooked.

Ooh, here’s another one who likes the word “magic”. Guess what this is about…

“Now that’s magic!”

Go on, have a guess. No? The headline the writer was grasping for was “Celebrity TV magician [name here] opens new headquarters of local company [name here]”.

I believe the celebrity in question uses the catchphrase “Now that’s magic!”, which is presumably why the writer used it. It’s an allusion, you see. Editors who happen to be familiar with the work of said celebrity and who have a bit of time on their hands will put two and two together and realise that the release is something to do with said celebrity. But over and above that, the headline does little to tell us what the release is about.

Same goes for this next one. To its credit, it’s about neither Christmas nor magic so it comes as rare and refreshing fruit to me, but it still manages to drive me wild through its use of a pun. Puns are inappropriate in press releases. If the writer wants to be clever and witty they should do so on their own time, for an audience that has the same sense of humour. Otherwise, they are simply showing off, at the expense of the reader’s understanding of the words.

Here you go….

“Rugby Star Muscles Up”

What does that mean, do you think? My first impression was that a rugby player was interfering where he wasn’t wanted, then I realised that would be “muscles in”, not “up”. Of course, it must be something to do with the rugby player getting more muscled. But why is that news? Don’t all sports stars work out?

The story is that he uses the products of a health supplement company with “Muscle” in its name. Aha, it’s a pun! He gets more muscles with Muscles – geddit??!!!!. Oh, I can’t start laughing.

Writers should always remember their audience – it would be fine for The Sun, for instance, to use a pun like this because that’s the kind of thing their readers like. But a press release writer isn’t writing for Sun readers – he/she is writing for a cross-section of journalists, all of whom want to know from the outset what the story is about. The reader shouldn’t have to puzzle out what is meant; it wastes time and is irritating. This story would have been better headlined something like “Rugby star puts on 10 stone by taking Muscle Company’s vitamins” or words to that effect.

Meanwhile, I’m collecting examples of good, efficient, press release headlines. There are some. Will report back in a later blog.

Pic credit: Tom Curtis, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=178

Nominations for the crappiest press release headlines & intros of the week

Good headlines and intros are vital to a press release’s chances of making it into print. A good headline sums up what the story is about, enabling the editor to decide whether or not it’s worth reading on.

A good intro encapsulates the gist of the story in one paragraph. This saves the editor from having to read the whole thing to find out what the story is. It also means that if there’s space for only one or two pars, a time-pressed or lazy journalist doesn’t have to sub too heavily to express the key facts concisely.

Writers of press releases often forget – or ignore – these basic principles; they write irrelevant, punny headlines or put the gist of their story half-way down the release, where it can be overlooked.

Their aim seems to be to entice the reader with flowery language, to charm them with linguistic creativity. Wake up! This isn’t romantic fiction, to be lingered over and savoured in the bath – editors haven’t got time for that kind of thing. What they want is relevant, to-the-point information, and quickly.

Writing a press release isn’t a creative writing competition; it’s about conveying the most important and relevant facts as quickly and concisely as possible.

Editors make snap judgments on press releases. What is the story here? Is it relevant to my readership? Tell me NOW.

If the crux of the story isn’t clear from the headline, the email might not even be opened. Then, if the relevance isn’t immediately apparent from the intro, the release will get trashed. Or the editor will waste time ploughing through flowery prose to discover what the point of the story is, then have to rewrite it, and get so pissed off in the process they’ll be prejudiced against that particular company in future.

Here are some examples from the past week.

Consider this headline:

“Falling leaves announce the seasons [sic] of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.

What’s that about? Any guesses? This release is helpfully telling us it’s autumn. But we knew that, so why bother issuing a press release about it? It’s also telling us the writer knows Keats (though not well enough to quote him correctly). So what? Of what possible relevance is that to an editor?

The writer doesn’t get to the point until paragraphs 3 and 4, when he/she reluctantly reveals the information that increasing numbers of gardeners are using machines to clear fallen leaves, leading to record sales for a manufacturer of garden equipment. That should have been the intro; and there’s really no reason for quoting 19^th century poets in a story whose most likely outlet is business or gardening publications.

That one isn’t the only company yearning to convey the astonishing news that autumn is coming. This is the opening para of another release: “Soon summer draws to a close, the temperature drops and we get the urge to create a warm atmosphere indoors.”

So bleeding what?  Are you a PR or a weather forecaster? The story, that a well-known designer is launching some coffee cups and candle-holders, seeps out eventually but you get the feeling the writer would rather be doing Mills & Boon than this kind of thing.

The basic principles of writing press releases are similar to those of writing news, so many of the best PRs have come from a newspaper background. Others have not experienced the discipline instilled by journalistic training; they’re possibly the ones who try to attention-grab with a “creative” (long-winded and irrelevant) approach.

Sometimes, though, it’s the client’s fault. They love the idea of “getting into print” and they get all carried away and fancy themselves as JK Rowling, and the PR is too weak-willed or jaded to argue about it.

One can imagine the conversation:

Client: Not sure I like that headline – “Company XYZ invents cure for all known diseases and wins Nobel Prize for Medicine”.

PR: What don’t you like about it?

Client: Well, it’s not very imaginative, is it? It’s not going to win us the Nobel Prize for Literature, ha ha.

PR: Er, what would you suggest?

Client: Well, how about a few romantic allusions to falling leaves and damp weather; you know, let the reader know autumn’s coming?

PR (rocking, and moaning softly): Whatever.

Here’s another headline, from a telecoms company, that leaves us in the dark about what the story is:

The Smartphone fear factor

What does it mean? All this tells us is that someone, somewhere, is scared of telephones. Not so, as it turns out. The story is actually about mobile phone companies missing a trick by making their products too complicated for the needs of an increasingly important demographic, the over-65s. The old dears aren’t actually frightened of smartphones – they simply find them unnecessarily complicated and are quite happy with a simple, cheap, pay-as-you-go phone. The only fear factor operating in this scenario is the writer’s fear of of the effort involved in coming up with a meaningful headline.

Here’s another one that won’t get to the point:

Warning! Is Killer Water Hiding in Your Household?

I don’t know. I have no idea. What are you talking about?

Another daft question is used as the opening sentence. When is Water in Your Home at its Most Dangerous? For goodness’ sake! I don’t know! Why don’t you tell me? Go on, you’re obviously longing to!

The story here doesn’t start emerging until paragraph 4 and isn’t fully out of the closet until para 6. It’s that a London man has invented a device that prevents dangerous mould from growing in houses and infecting people with respiratory ailments. Could be interesting to business and technology journalists and local papers as well as health and science reporters – but would they bother reading the release having seen that headline?

Examples of good press release headlines and intros to come in another post!

Pic credit: Salvatore Vuono, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659