In my frenzied killing spree – my PR Death Watch series, blog posts that predict the demise of
sacred cows of PR – I have overlooked one of the most obvious anachronisms: the PR pitch.
Pity the poor pitch. It just wants to be heard and loved. It is needy, and seeks that attention of anyone who will listen. It smacks of desperation. It is the Spam of our profession.
Now, stay with me on this one. I have not gone nuts. Like the press release (which some people said would go away after Tom Foremski’s now infamous post), the pitch will not become extinct anytime soon. PR people will seek the attention and coverage of intermediaries, and their approaches will be called pitching.
But surely the PR pitch is not what it once was. Back in the day (“the day” being anything before about three or four years ago) pitches, if not always exactly welcomed, often provided fodder for traditional media to build stories.
To an extent this still happens, but pitches are more often becoming fodder of a different sort.
In this era, the pitch has become a great big target, a victim of those that need to fill white space, the blogger’s muse and all-too- convenient piñata.
Further, social media has changed the way people discover information. Today, it is more about engagement and becoming part of a conversation (this is actually a good thing, IMHO).
So when I say the pitch is in its death throes, I mean pitches as they have traditionally been used by PR: the lazy form letter that fuels the mass blast. I blogged about this in my post: Try Fugu, the Tasty New Pitch Spam Delicacy.
So what will replace the PR pitch? How will it change and how will we change?
As promised in my post Reimagining PR, I will start offering positive counterbalances to Death Watch posts. So stay tuned.
