At this time of year, tech writers are inundated with spam from CES attendees. Some of them pay attention to what beats writers actually cover, but many shovel their PR to the entire god-damned list. PhoneScoop, which covers cellular telephones, received a missive from Samsung and Westinghouse PR rep Lois Whitman, pitching televisions. Their request for this not to happen again was polite enough. Lois' response, however, was an exercise in madness:
"I don’t need you to tell me what is right or what is wrong.
I have been in the CE business for 42 years
I have seen nasty people like you melt away faster than a snowball going up hill in the rain
I am waiting for an apology
Maybe we can meet at CES for a hug or a slug
P.S. I just visited your web site. I would hardly call your blog a
publication."
Read the full thing at CrunchGear: PR and the fine art of not being crazy [CrunchGear]
Photo: Lois Whitman
That’s a hell of an e-mail. For a PR pro to actually send such a thing is Not Good, even if she was just having a bad day or something.
The unquoted follow-up line to “I’d hardly call your blog a publication” is awesomely schizo-tastic: “However, you do have very interesting content and we have lots of client you would like to know more about to help you in your endeavors.” So she’s telling PhoneScoop she thinks they suck, but also that they should shill her clients’ stuff. Blargh.
Wow… Just… Wow….
If I was in marketing and was one of her clients I would be looking for a new PR rep before I got to the end of this article.
From the cursory digging I did, this seems to be her (and her company’s) MO. They simply spam email addresses of people who might be related to the media in some way, and hope some of it sticks.
…This gal’s tirade reminds me of the IBM bimbo that John Dvorak had to pick up the check for when she invited John and a bunch of other tech junk journalists to what turned out to be a propaganda pitch and then claimed she never offered to buy anyone lunch.
But what the hell? As I’ve said all along, marketing people are idiots as well as retards…:-P
Her email is puerile, true, but if you dig a little, you’ll read the email TO her that prompted hers; it’s at least a little rude on its own, and it would show the whole picture to show both in this article.
We “used to” call it being of good graces. There were certain bounds. And violating them risked being shunned. Which in reputation based circles was akin to a death penalty of sorts. Or would suicide be more apt?
Maybe they read the depictions of PR in the Mission Earth dekalogy?
I’ve only ever known one other person, through work, with a claim to be a “PR expert.” I find it quite amusing that this woman pictured is a near exact clone of the one I know. It must be something with the profession that requires poorly colored hair, desperately ironic eyeglasses, floral prints, a quarter-inch of makeup and general douchebaggery.
She thinks she can fight? I say take her up on it.
I wonder if she’ll be in the business for 43 years.
What a manly..email.
“I have been in the CE business for 42 years”
I wonder how “CE” experience from 1966 applies to today? My guess from this email is that it makes you completely out of touch. Some might learn lessons and move into the new century but this woman is clearly tripping over her own ego because she has such great experience selling beta max and 8-tracks.
Sounds to me like someone was hitting the sauce…
oooh , it has a blog
http://loiswhitman.blogspot.com
its fire and ice. some of my favourites
“As a PR expert for the last 30 years, I must be more sensative to changes in fashion than most others”
”
By asking to be cut from lists, you only cut yourself off in this world of digital communications.
Sure, you may not be interested in this particular news item, but who knows, the next one could be exactly what you need.
This morning Ned Colt called from NBC London asking to be taken off. A cross-Atlantic call instead of a simple delete.
I think that tells you something about a person. I am not going to say what.”
“Do you know why John Mc Cain is going to win in November?
Because the Democrats are going to let him. The same way they let Bush get in. The Democrats always default to inner turmoil.
This is a PR nightmare.
I know nothing about politics but boy do I know about PR.”
i wish she was my mum
Wow. Violating the law* and rude about it too. What a wonderful “PR” person.
I work with a dozen PR Professionals week in and week out. This person is a fraud.
*depending on where you live, her M.O. could range the gamut from unauthorised use of computing resources to violation of opt-out laws to libel. Sweeeeeeeeet. I wonder how much money this person’s made as a “PR Professional”.
I receive emails from Lois, almost never in my coverage areas (which are all over the place for different publications), and I have been largely unable to get those emails to stop.
Other PR people have no trouble with taking me off lists and stopping calling when I tell them that I don’t write about the area they’re trying to pitch me on, BECAUSE IT IS A WASTE OF THEIR TIME.
Public Relations Fail.
“A hug or a slug?” Wow. She reads like a crazy lady who hangs around a dive bar and alternately hurls incoherent abuse at the men who go there and invites them to come back to her trailer, knowing that they’ll ignore her obscenity- and threat-laden tirade from a minute ago because, being losers in life, they have no better options.
John Biggs wrote a completely class reply in his comments section underneath Lois Whitman’s somewhat self-deprecating apology. He didn’t have to be a jerk at that point. Everybody involved has been a jerk. Similar minds, I guess, bring similar behaviors. Jerk, jerk, jerk.