In our first “Controlling the Media Controllables” series of interviews with media members at influential outlets throughout the country, we begin by examining the rarely considered/shared media member’s perspective- the receiving side of brand pitches.
With more than 26 years at leading national TV programs including TODAY, The View and currently The Wendy Williams Show, we spoke with Emmy Award Winning producer Jennifer Shepard-Brookman who shared her candid experiences.
We began with a simple question, What is the most infuriating type of mistake you commonly see in brand pitches?
“I get 5-10 pitches every week that mention another shows name like Ellen, Live with Kelly and Ryan or GMA, it’s infuriating,” said Shepard-Brookman. “Pitches that get my host(s) wrong or misspell their names. Daily occurrence; deleted immediately.”
This topic is especially timely as we approach the beginning of a Fiscal year for many brands. This time often comes with building/finalizing/budgeting campaign plans for the coming year to successfully generate valuable Third Party Endorsements. All brand marketing teams have top-tier media targets that can help them to achieve/exceed their specific business objectives. For many, TODAY, The View and The Wendy Williams Show represent this top echelon of influential media target.
Every single day these producers are getting pitches that reference the wrong program or hosts, killing the brands’ chance of success immediately and also damaging the PR person’s credibility. All this occurred and the “quality of the idea” never factored into this unfortunate outcome for all. If this is happening everyday at the top national targets, what does that mean for the secondary targets and beyond?
“You can always tell immediately in a pitch if they have even seen the show before. It is clearly not about my show, it’s about getting on any show,” Shepard-Brookman shared.
This reveals another credibility challenge supporting why 99.5% of brand pitches do not result in the desired outcome. Underscoring the critical value of having a team with already established relationships and credibility with the media. How can you know if your team has that equity or not? That’s the right question to ask, but can be elusive to definitively answer.
“In my career, there are approximately 10-15 PR pros that I will read and respond to every pitch they send,” said Shepard-Brookman. When asked about the frequency of bad pitches, “…too many to count. The majority of pitches I get are garbage.”
Now we know the challenges are deeper than just creating and communicating a solid idea, we need to ensure the “pitch messengers” have the equity and/or are not stepping on these easily avoidable land mines.
Earned Media is the outlier in the marketing tool belt. The foundation of all successful Earned Media campaigns begin with a solid “idea” that provides value to the brand AND the media outlet’s audience. What we have learned here is the messenger and communication surrounding the pitch needs as much attention and focus as building the ideas themselves.
There are an infinite amount of ways that pitch ideas can fail and very few ways to make them succeed. Learn how we work with our partners teams, enabling them to build these valuable relationships and apply Best Practices that come directly from the Media they are targeting.