By Tom Kirkham
One of the reasons I like technology PR is that the products we deal with are actually useful - I've never had any interest in promoting a new flavour of soft drink or a washing powder that smells like a leafy glade. However, irrespective of the product's capabilities, the question we always have to ask our clients is, "Do you have a customer we can reference?"
The customer is the all-important endorsement, and in many cases, if you can't provide this, you're not going to make it into print. There are two main reasons for this:
1) Integrity (fair enough)
2) Readership - ie. most readers are end-users, and so want to hear the views of other end-users
Now, the problem with this is that it can give rise to anti-vendor media bias - there are already a fair few publications/editors that won't listen to anything a vendor has to say unless it comes via a customer. It's easy to see where this stance comes from - after all, no one wants to read a self-promoting tech marketing exec pontificating in a language only understood by other tech marketing execs. But is a blanket veto of vendor comment really justified?
End-users want to hear from customers in order to supposedly get an unbiased view of what a product or technology does, and what the benefits are. But the fact that a customer goes on record to endorse something is no guarantee of this. What if the only available spokesperson is an IT administrator with no training in how to translate highly complex technical information to ordinary ears? Worse - what if it's some dude from the customer's press office, who doesn't understand the product in the slightest, but fancies seeing his name in the press?
Or what if the only reason the customer is willing to speak in the first place is because the vendor recently took them for a slap-up meal at Sketch followed by a champagne-fuelled night out at Spearmint Rhino?
In all these cases, it's debatable whether the end-user readership is going to learn very much at all.
A good spokesperson is a good spokesperson, regardless of where they come from. While a customer might always be the preferred option, that doesn't mean vendor contributions should be ruled out entirely. After all, when it comes down to it, customers want good publicity just as much as the vendors do, just as publications should want to run both informed and informative copy.
Ultimately, does it really matter who does the talking, so long as the readers are happy?
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