PR in the 21st Century: or 'How to Fumble the New Media'

Dear PR Rep:

When you emailed me out of the blue and stated: "We'd like to offer you a bottle of this new fragrance to review", and included a photo attachment of said new fragrance in bottle:

then it was bound to be a bit of a head-scratcher as, a few days later, I retrieved the "bottle" from my mailbox and it looked like this:

I mean, really, if I'd have known that by "bottle" you actually meant "scratched and dented test sampler with faded ink-jet label", I'd have declined the offer. Without hesitation.

So no, you're not getting a review, unless by "review" you're comfortable with the equivalent of what I got after you promised "a bottle" . . . ?

I didn't think so.

Yours truly,

Nathan

P.S. -- if it sounds crazy that I was expecting the full-on package with bottle, even a brief scroll through my site might convince you otherwise. Do PR Reps even look at the sites of people they send "bottles" to, or is it just a matter of carpet-bombing the internet in hopes of getting as many mentions as possible?

In other words, if you throw enough sh*t at the wall . . .

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATION:
You know, Robert Duffy (of Marc Jacobs) was just recently quoted as saying that they weren't going to invite celebrities to sit in the front row of the Marc Jacobs runway show in New York next week -- that times are different now and the big fashion brands need to change the way they interact with the public or risk the public switching off on them.

Maybe it's time that PR reps thought about changing the 'One Size Fits All' way they interact with blogs and web sites (aka the public), too.

***Note: In case any of you are wondering (and yes, I had some crazy person try to leave a comment filled with bizarre accusations -- thank god for the delete button): No, I'm not treated "preferentially" by PR reps or fragrance companies. I don't get regular offers of full bottles for review (this would have been my first; obviously, I was mistaken) and I certainly don't contact companies or reps to ask for bottles, as purchasing my own products for review affords me the freedom to look at the entire package far more objectively than if I were dependent upon the generosity of reps.