Press releases in an over sensitive society

In the winter of 2001, the Washington Post Magazine called out public relations firm, Porter Novelli International, for what the paper called a tasteless news release for one of their clients, Chef America’s Hot Pockets sandwiches.

The Porter Novelli release in question said: Although the last few weeks have been a challenging time for everyone both personally and professionally, I know that we are all striving to return to “normal.” In the coming weeks as you begin to return to your regular areas of focus; I want you to be familiar with Chef America, makers of HOT POCKETS brand sandwiches.

One of their columnists, Gene Weingarten, criticized the release saying, “People don’t buy HOT POCKETS because they are grateful to the manufacturers for their humanitarian gestures. They buy HOT POCKETS because they’re scared of Osama.”

http://scienceblogs.com/

The firm was criticized for trying to capitalize on the terrorist attacks. I’m not really sure that I see the point here. It seems to me that the public relations firm was only trying to acknowledge what was on everyone’s mind at the time. I mean isn’t it a little awkward to just go on with business like everything’s fine?

What was the release supposed to say, “Hey, I know we just suffered a huge loss of precious life and now we as country are afraid for the safety of our citizens but, on the bright side, we just invented a new type of HOT POCKET! I mean honestly, to me this seems to be nothing more than business can’t just stop dead, no matter what’s going on in the world.

However, I suppose there’s always something more that could be looked at when you’re writing a press release. You have to consider every word that you’re writing, because it is a representation of your firm and of your clients. 

I believe that since releases are written so often, they are often overlooked. A public relations professional should take extra care when delivering a press release and be sure edit it for clarity; because as you can see from the controversy over this press release, one small error could have you defending yourself and your clients.