Take It to the Top

Now that the story has aired on TV and put on some local muscle, it’s time to take it to the nationals. San Francisco is about 3,000 miles from the media capital of the world, where all syndication and nationwide broadcasting happens—New York, but by making the right decisions, you can get there fast, and the plane can stay behind.

As with the local media, national broadcast and print media don’t usually compete with each other, either. Therefore, if you play your cards intelligently, you can use one to get the other, maximize your coverage, and sell more Street Coupes. To move the print coverage past the borders of the Bay Area and into New York and every other metro area in the country, you need to seek out the syndicated wire services.

A placement in the Associated Press wire, for example, will officially make you an expert, as far as the media’s concerned. Some outlets, such as Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Associated Press, cover news around the world and distribute their stories to thousands of papers across the globe. A good syndicated story can wind up in seventy or eighty papers around the world, including USA Today, the New York Times, the Guardian (U.K.), Der Stern, the Financial Times, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, and the Wall Street Journal. This is why we counsel you to pay attention to “small” newspapers like the Dallas Morning-News, which has great reporters (notably in the business section). Thus, its stories are picked up by many newspapers the world over, which vastly extends the reach of the press coverage for you.

Why Any Press Is Good Press: Not!

When the press reported that Woody Allen was dating his girlfriend’s daughter, the diameter of his already miniscule social circle got even smaller. For Woody, it was press he could have done without.

“Any press,” as they say, doesn’t always equal “good press.” The rule we are shooting down doesn’t apply only to celebrity family get-togethers, either. It applies to you, your company, your product, or your big idea. Bad press goes beyond the “oh my, look at what they said about me” form of dirt-dishing. Indeed there is, in the media world, a worse fate than a daily reporting on your arrest some years back, or the accounting scandal, girlfriend on the side, or bad toupee. That happens when an intrepid reporter makes news about your business and somehow misses the entire point of what you are doing.

That, friends, is a pure example of bad, meaningless press. Like sex without love, we surmise.

In 2000, the Wall Street Journal ran a cover story on LowerMy_Bills.com, a website and firm that compares your monthly bills— electric to credit cards to mobile phone charges—and pairs you up with a company willing to give you the same service but cheaper. There was a coveted Journal placement with almost a full page of text, accessorized by artwork and glowing commentary. Many PR pros thought that this piece of press was, in fact, pretty terrific.

We were smart enough to know better. It’s not that the Journal gave LowerMyBills the editorial boot or panned it amongst competitors. Hardly the case: While the Journal was complimentary about the idea of a way to lower bills, the company was discussed as part of an energy conservation trend piece, which was not the firm’s mission at all. In fact, the article confused the message LMB was trying to send the public about what the site and its founders were actually up to.

As expected, the article didn’t end up making a dent in site traffic—very little business came of it. But the real problem wasn’t the lack of response. It was more that LMB’s big chance in the Journal was lost on poor messaging and sloppy definition—well, let’s just say it got rushed out.

Words in a paper or on a monitor do not necessarily equal good press. If you’re trying to be perceived as credible, a story about your rap sheet isn’t adding to the cause, nor is a newspaper article that completely misses what you’re about. No. “Just any” press is not good press. In fact, it can do you more harm than good.

Let’s take the Associated Press as an example of syndicated coverage. Although it’s based in New York, the Associated Press has writers stationed all over the map. Therefore, finding the one assigned to your neighborhood (and your beat) is essential. If the yellow pages don’t work, try the syndicate’s website for listings of the regional office closest to you. Line up your best pitch, fork over a copy of the Examiner article (this is why you kept extra copies, remember?), and submit a VHS tape. You could even send over someone on a skateboard. Let the AP reporter know he’s the first one to give the Street Coupe a “go” outside of the Bay Area. He’ll be pleased.

Wire service coverage is really not that much different from print coverage generally, except that you never know exactly when and where it will run. You can pitch, and the reporter can write the best story ever, but if none of the service’s subscribers picks up the darned thing, you’re meat. A nice AP or Reuters reporter will inform you of the story’s progress, or you can just get onto their websites and follow the bouncing dateline.

Anyway, in this case, that local AP reporter sounded intrigued. He tells you he’ll call you back—maybe not today, but in a few days. Keep on him, and your Street Coupe will soon be all over the afternoon wire for every local, national, and foreign paper to pick up and run with. Often, the story runs with graphics “supplied” by the AP (in other words, you).

When good stories run over the wire, the broadcast media jump on it, and you may come in one morning to find you have a message from the morning news producers in New York, Boston, or Chicago, asking for an opportunity to take the Street Coupe for a test run live tomorrow. Now, these shows may have millions of viewers, and they may be well-rated shows, but … ask yourself if this is what you really want. These shows have their audiences, but they aren’t national shows, per se, and there are programs with more viewers who can make your skateboards bigger. Even if you’re not nationally known yet, you should be thinking this way in order to ramp up the level of your press coverage at this point.

Let’s go for the gusto and aim for the Today show. America loves Matt and Katie, and you can bet having either one of them zipping around on your Coupe is guaranteed to sell thousands, if not tens of thousands, of them. Also, the Street Coupe is just the type of feel-good, innovative toys they cover. So before you get back to the Boston producer, make the pitch to someone at NBC—by e-mail, fax, and phone—and see what happens. You’ve come this far, and a fear of rejection is the only thing slowing you down now.

Taking your product, service, or idea from the local press to the national media in a matter of days isn’t as farfetched as it sounds, and we’re not suggesting the national shows simply for ego gratification. Shows like Good Morning America and Today have so many viewers that they in turn influence not only the water cooler crowd, but also pop culture in general. They affect the press, and, in a way, they make the rules, or at least the trends. After all, it’s the morning—when everyone is sleepy and the subconscious rules!