16 December 2024
Some years ago, a client complained to an account executive that their press releases were a bit ‘samey’.
They were.
The press releases he was talking about were mainly new product releases for plastic buckets.
The buckets were functional, not especially remarkable, but well-made and they did their job.
Many businesses used them to carry their products.
Our agency would naturally issue press stories when a new product was launched as part of the ongoing PR programme.
The press announcements were written for a business-to-business audience and distributed to a generous selection of trade titles, including the famous Plastics and Rubber Weekly (I kid you not).
There really wasn’t anything dramatic to say about the products, but a new product launch was still newsworthy to this niche audience.
Supporting the new product announcement story, we'd include information details about a new bucket, including its size(s), whether or not it was supplied with a lid, what material it was made from, its colour (usually white), whether or not it had a carrying handle.
That was pretty much it. You could swap the order round a little, which the account exec did do to be fair, but there was only so much creativity you could put into each story to make them sound interesting. There is no room for hyperbole.
The client was right, they were ‘samey’.
But he was really thinking about himself, rather than his prospective buyers, reading their regular copy of Plastics and Rubber Weekly.
Basically, he was getting bored reading ‘identikit’ press releases month after month. He wanted something a bit more exciting. Something with a bit more pazzazz.
It’s not unusual in companies that manufacture utilitarian products. It’s a desire to have the cachet of companies such as Nike or Google or Apple.
Focus on the customer. What do they want?
But what about prospective purchasers of plastic buckets?
They wouldn’t notice that news about plastic buckets was fairly similar in style and content each time the launch of a new plastic bucket made it in to print. In fact, they might not even register that they had seen a story about (another) new plastic bucket in and amongst the many other product stories run every week or month in a magazine (probably across multiple magazines), unless, of course, they were on the lookout for a new supplier of plastic buckets.
As for pazzazz? It’s a white, plastic bucket. They want it to be good value for money, possibly with a robust, ergonomic handle and, maybe, a lid that is secure and easy to remove and refit. They’ll never carry it round as a fashion accessory. They don’t want or need pazzazz.
What’s more, you can only do so much with a story about a plastic bucket. If you try to present it as a wonder product, you’ll just get laughed at. You’ll lose credibility.
The important point is that by regularly featuring the brand of plastic buckets in the niche media that served the plastics industry and those industries that have a need for plastic buckets meant that when a buyer wanted to review their supplier, or they were a new entrant to the market, the client’s brand of buckets was more likely to be front of mind and, therefore, make it onto their shortlist.
What’s more, the fact that the stories always followed a similar style and used similar content probably helped to reinforce the brand amongst those readers not yet ready to buy, but who would be in the market some time in the future.
It’s a repetition thing. Consistency and repetition are the fundamental ingredients for getting messages across to your audience.
Having said that, there was enough variety in the rest of the PR programme so that everything wasn’t all the same.
Technical articles, case studies, application stories, bespoke offerings, recycling capabilities.
It all adds up to a rich PR programme of informative content, targeted, specifically, at people who need plastic buckets for their business. And there are a lot of them.
Of course, they would probably all have had current suppliers, but every week, every month there would be around 5% of the target audience who were in the market for a new supplier or who needed a specific type of bucket that they couldn’t get from their current supplier.
That statistic is pretty universal for most business-to-business products.
So, when those prospective customers opened their regular copy of Plastics and Rubber Weekly, the story about a new plastic bucket would give them reason to add the client to their shortlist. Especially, if they were familiar with the company because of the many similar PR stories and articles about plastic buckets they had seen regularly over the previous months or years.
Given that most people want a supplier who can be relied upon to deliver a consistent product, time after time, being seen as ‘samey’ and reliable might not be a bad thing after all.
