The hack showed me his inbox with the usual disdain. He remains baffled as to why so many companies want his attention. Especially given his general modus operandi. (Companies who do get his attention are in a bad place.)
Since August his email has had an automated response that says: “I’m not around until late October.”
Is that OOO response enough to discourage the robot sending the emails? Just the opposite.
Any response at all means another follow-up email, possibly two, followed by two more messages saying “I’m not here”.
What we have is two machines speaking nonsense to each other, without any sense that this may be a waste of time.
Perhaps there is some comfort in all this.
In a post-apocalypse world where a combination of climate change and nuclear war has left us all dead, PR robots and journalism robots will still be sending each other messages.
That might be all the aliens find. That and big bills for data storage.
Hacks who get cross about this stuff are being a bit histrionic. They can block, delete, ignore – it’s just an email.
But plainly all of this activity is not subject to productivity tests. A PR email was sent. Some sort of response was received. Job done.
Perhaps there are better ways.
A thought: Relx is one of the best performing companies in the FTSE, yet I know almost nothing about it.
I can’t find anything from them in my inbox no matter how far back I go.
Over five years the shares are up nearly 100%.
The Relx CEO is Erik Engstrom. I didn’t know his name and can’t remember a single profile about him.
There was a piece in the FT last February, which had him as “unflashy” and noted that he has done one interview in 15 years.
Relx does do social media stuff, explaining what it is about and where it intends to go.
No PR agency is listed on its financial results, though of course they may have one in the background.
Which is plainly where Relx would prefer to stay.
If an academic study was done of which companies spent most on PR vs which companies perform best, what would it show?
Perhaps only that companies in trouble spend more on PR than companies which aren’t.
Still, such a study might prove awkward reading for the flak trade.
Please send candidates for press release of the day to: simon.english@roxhillmedia.com
