2008-11-21

PRs targeting bloggers, making mistakes

The PR-blogger-journalist-travel company debate continues apace following last week's shenanigans at the inaugural TravelBlogCamp in London.

This week both I and one of our regular freelancers received an email from a London PR agency, titled: "Press Trip: Valencia Wants Bloggers."

It was the usual blather about shopping, sightseeing and how Valencia - getting there, but not quite, in our opinion - is "one of the most vibrant city break destinations in the world".

At the foot of the email were these killer lines:

* Yes, I (or a nominee) would like to undertake a trip to Valencia in return for editorial coverage

* No - I am not interested

Let's forget for a moment that Travolution's writers are not generally known as bloggers and we have never produced any colourful destination content, so a bit of a badly targeted pitch.

Secondly, the sender also attached a Media Assessment Form for each writer to complete outlining how much coverage they would give to the trip, airline and hotel.

This is the usual pre-trip checklist for the client - but unfortunately on this occasion a completed form from a well known West of England newspaper was attached, rather than a blank form.

Needless to say, Valencia (read, PR agency) will be doing rather nicely from the titles this particular person is representing.

Anyway, back to the "blogger" pitch. This indicates a number of things:

1) That there is a concerted effort amongst some PR agencies to involve bloggers in the traditional 'media trip' to destinations. No harm in that at all.

2) That circulation and traffic is not an issue, replaced perhaps by influence. [The newspaper in question stated it had print circulation 54,000 per issue and web traffic of 43,000 - figures that most consumer travel bloggers would love to have, let's face it).

3) That the PRs at TravelBlogCamp last week (remember: they made up 20% of the audience) must remember that an approach such as the one above will undoubtedly fail, because most of the bloggers there - unless the bloggers were fibbing, of course - did not want to be influenced by travel firms.

These are fascinating times for the relationship between the media and travel.

Does anyone know of other press trip pitches specifically targeting bloggers? Will the traditional pitch ("in return for coverage") work for bloggers? Does anyone care?!?

This post was originally posted by Kevin May @ Travolution Blog.
> Read the original post here