I have an advice to the many startups in the Valley, after you watch the video: don’t try this at home!
One of the many funny moments at today’s PRSA event titled “PR in a Down Economy: Secret Strategies For Success” was when Dell’s Vice President of Large Enterprise Marketing and Online, Andy Lark, talked about blogs versus the traditional media, and how bloggers keep him awake at night, and not the Wall Street Journal’s consumer technology journalist, Walt Mossberg.
“When I wake up in the morning at Dell, I’m not worried about what Walt Mossberg is going to write. I’m worried about what Ryan, and guys writing at Engadget and Gizmodo… They are more like to break a story than any journalist out there except Justin Scheck from the Wall Street Journal,” jokes Lark.
Scheck recently wrote an investigative piece on Dell’s plans to sell its first smart phone.
If you’re the size of Dell you might get away snobbing someone as influential as Mossberg. But if you’re not, there are many ways to “pitch” him – at conferences he attends for example – and you don’t necessarily need a PR firm for that!
[Update] In his Thursday column in the Wall Street Journal, Mossberg reviewed 2 Dell consumer products – the Adamo super-thin laptop and the Studio One all-in-one desktop – noting that “with these machines, Dell is making a strong bid to win back consumers’ hearts. It’s off to a decent start.” Sounds nice to me. Wonder if that’s why Lark was not worried about what Mossberg is writing!
Thanks for posting the video. My main point isn’t that you should snob Mossberg, but rather that I worry more about the bloggers… they are setting the agenda every minute of every day. And they are agressively competitive.
I would also say that Mossberg is one of the most professional journalists out there (so is Scheck). So, having pitched Mossberg for over 20 years, you’d better have an unequivocal belief that your product is a winner through his lens.