PR Tactics: Block and Tackle

The phrase “block and tackle” gets thrown around a lot, but in PR, like in football, it can get quite literal. And the media love nothing more than to write about a PR person who abuses them.

Many remember the notorious Apple PR video where two company reps ambush an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 after an Apple exec is asked a question about iTunes being a monopoly. Ok, so the reporter used the “m word,” but the Apple exec should have been well prepared for that one and not just have looked over at PR to bail him out. “You’re focusing on a different agenda and we’d like you to focus on iPhone,” said one of the PR reps.

Apparently something similar happened at the season launch party for AMC’s Madmen this week. The LA Times‘ Maria Elena Fernandez complains that the interview everyone wanted, Jon Hamm, aka Don Draper, the lead character in the show, was very hard to get. That’s not entirely surprising and part of the blame goes to his publicist Erica Gray of PMK.

According to Hernandez, reporters tried to get time with Hamm, and they did. Hernandez has several lengthy quotes in her story. But after approaching him a second time, PR stepped in, “…before we could utter one syllable, Gray (does she make a lot of money doing this kind of thing?) led him away again,” she said.

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