This is a post by Bob Lauder, Vice President and Supervisor, Public Relations at Doe-Anderson.
The PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando is a great place to introduce new products in the golf industry. Since 1993, I’ve been making the trek to Orlando as the PR representative for Hillerich & Bradsby, the company that owns PowerBilt Golf and Bionic Gloves (and another brand you’ve probably heard of – Louisville Slugger).
Some 800 media members attend. This means anyone with a new gizmo or gadget in the golf industry is holding a news conference and assembling press kits.
This year, the organizers of the show are urging the PR folks to go green. Don’t print press releases and put them in glossy folders, they plead. Instead, they’re asking everyone to post news online. They even provide a Web site for all news releases.
While it may be environmentally responsible to chuck the printed news release, it’s not strategic. Not yet, anyway. Reporters still need to a way to instantly read news -friendly info about your company’s innovative products.
At the same time, here are some measures we’ve taken to be greener. First of all, we’ve cut the number press kits we assemble. We take advantage of the online pressroom, plus we’re providing more electronic press kits on CDs. While CDs are not ideal, they’re more economical than thumb drives.
We no longer print letterhead and folders. All images are incorporated into the MSWord (or PDF) file and printed on an as needed basis. We buy stock folders from the local office-supply store, as many as we need, and uses rub-down logos to give the folders a professional look. This way, we’re only buying 100 or 200 folders, instead of quantities needed for a press run, such as 1,000 or 2,000 or more. The same is true for letterhead. And who hasn’t tossed outdated folders and letterhead at some point?
We’ve also gotten better at communicating electronically in advance of the show. All notifications of news conferences, plus early distribution of news releases are done via e-mail. The days of the 3D mailers seem to be gone.
Over the years, I’ve seen the press room at the PGA Show grow significantly. The amount of pure trash that fills the space has become significant. Yes, we need to be greener in how we announce news. But it’s not quite time to completely kill the printed press release.
