There's been a lot of excitement in the press about all the money Internet companies are spending on advertising. Leonard Saffir, a seasoned PR professional and author of
the newly published book Power Public Relations, thinks those budgets would have been better spent on public relations. And he's backing this up with action. His new company,
CelebrityStores.com, an online magazine, will be promoted by PR, nothing else. Here's how he plans on doing it:
PRNEWS: So you think the money dotcom companies spent advertising on the Super Bowl was a waste?
Leonard Saffir: I can accomplish more with a much smaller budget using PR and the Internet. If I can get one story of CelebrityStores.com even in a local or regional paper,
it's gonna be more effective than a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl and better than if I sent out 2,000 news releases, telling this story to everyone in the country.
PRN: One story in a local paper? How will that be more effective?
LS: Because of the snowball effect on the Internet. When the story comes out in the paper, it's dead the next day because tomorrow's news is out. But, if you can get the
story distributed on one of the Internet wire services it hangs around a long time and the audience seeing it there is enormous.
PRN: So that one story gets picked up virally. But how do you know that the enormous online audience is going to see it?
LS: Recently, I put a five-line classified ad in a local paper for a writer. It ran from Friday to Sunday, and by Monday I received a dozen responses.
By the middle of the week I suddenly started getting responses from all around the world. People said they saw my ad on Internet sites like Inscriptions.com or about.com,
which I never even heard of. What I found out was somewhere along the line my classified ad was put on the paper's Web and other sites copied it. In the end, I got over 300
responses from that five-line ad.
PRN: But a classified ad is not copyrighted like an article. Anyone can run it. How can you be sure your one story, which has a copyright, will get the same distribution as
your ad?
LS: The best example I can tell you to support this idea is in the real, or offline world. I will pick up the New York Times in the morning and read an article that was not
released to the press. Yet invariably it plays on the network's evening news. It happens at least several times a week. What the evening news people do is read the article in
the Times and then go cover it themselves. This is the snowball effect I was telling you about, only on the Internet there's more places to put a story and more people who see
it.
PRN: And this is how one story will be more effective than a Super Bowl ad or press release?
LS: Yes.
PRN: But if the Internet is so important, why not skip getting a story in an offline newspaper and put the story online?
LS: Because the offline media has credibility. Ask any PR person, a story in the New York Times about a stock is going to move that stock and that article is going to end up on
the Internet.
PRN: So which newspaper are you targeting?
LS: The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. I brought one of its writers into a few of the company meeting so he could get a feel for what we are all about. All in all, I'd say he's
observed about 10 hours of watching us work and I've supplied him with all the material he's asked for to write the story. From beginning to end, introducing myself to him and
getting the story to press, has been about two months.
PRN: What if he does a hatchet job? Then your one story is bad press.
LS: I can't be 100 percent certain that he won't do that, but I read through his past clips and saw how he wrote his articles. I don't think he will.
PRN: So that's it? All PR professionals need to do is get one story printed in a local paper and let the Internet do the rest?
LS: No. You still have to do the fundamentals of PR. That one story going on a number of Internet sites primes the pump.
It's the excitement you need to make the phone calls and drive the idea to the media that your story is worth telling.
(Leonard Saffir, 561/479-2969.)
From 1984 to 1990, Saffir was executive VP of Porter Novelli International where he worked on the Philip Morris account, developing sports and entertainment projects. He
also worked on the MasterCard, Pepsi Cola, Bristol-Myers and Kraft accounts.
Saffir served as chief of staff and press secretary to U.S. Senator James Buckley from 1971 to 1976 and managed election campaigns for Buckley, as well as New York City
Mayoral candidate John Marchi.
Saffir has received the Sigma Delta Chi Professional Journalistic Society Award for distinguished achievement and the Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil award.