Unfortunately for some, the internet has made fools of embargoes – once an image or some news goes out into the ether, it’s kind of fair game, surely? I’ve been asked yet again today to respect an embargo that is only in place because a national newspaper wants to feature it first. There’s a particular press office that still hasn’t actually got over the fact I broke an embargo on some Brad Pitt endorsed shower gel (no return phone calls, steely silence on the press release/sample front, etc) when in fact, the product had already launched in the states and the images were everywhere! The fact that bloggers have got exceptionally good at weeding out images and info from the net means that mostly, embargoes are pointless. Slowly, brands are waking up to the fact that they can no longer call ridiculous shots and say when and where we can feature a product…..and in turn this will mean that the mags and papers can’t take first dibs. If PRs want to enter into secretive arrangements then they need to stop showing everyone the goods and then telling everyone else in effect they’re less important than the national that somehow feels it is entitled to preferential treatment (and so many other publications collude with this by accepting the terms, no questions asked). Maybe I can remind everyone that as blog readerships rise, newpaper readerships are falling. Writing an open blog is not for the faint-hearted…there is more often than not a come-back of sorts, but I’ve given up worrying about it. We’ll see how it all pans out but I’m guessing a few glossy tantrums are still to come on this subject. In the meantime, I’ve done a little artistic impression of the said embargoed item…..can you tell what it is yet?
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All products are sent to me as samples from brands and agencies unless otherwise stated. Affiliate links may be used. Posts are not affiliate driven.
12 comments
Could it be the Marc Jacobs Lola Ring? Perhaps a solid perfume?
I really like your posts on the embargoes!
Klara
Klara, I couldn’t possibly say!!!
Oh I know how you feel. I accidentally broke a story before the world exclusive appeared in WWD! But that was because here was no embargo written on the press release. Not my fault then!
I agree that the days of those exclusive deals with newspapers and mags is over – don’t PR’s realise it alienates more people than it befriends anyway? Love that fact that yet again, it’s blogging that is forcing the industry to change!
Ooooh do tell, the suspense is killing me. I can hardly contain myself(!)
Some PR folk really need to chill the hell out.
Oh yes, we have the same thing here in Russia. As we have here many products coming out after all the rest world, it’s really ridiculous, when PR people tell that we can’t write about product before it starts in Russia! When it finally happens, you are the last with the news…
Embargoes are patently ridiculous… They take the ‘news’ out of newspapers, surely, if the information they’re attempting to censor is already, no doubt, available in the public realm.
I had the benefit of being in the US when the Brad Pitt-Kiehl’s shower gel launched and wasn’t going to wait for any sort of embargo across international waters to expire before writing about it. The news was available to me and I was posting.
And there is NOTHING more irritating (except for beauty hall vulchers aka counter girls) than being requested to take down a post about something because a magazine with a circulation of 6,000 (less than this blog) or a newspaper supplement wants first dibs. Tough nuts.
Bloggers, post away and damn the press embargo… it’s the equivalent of trench warfare in the 21st century… it just doesn’t work when the tools of the game have changed.
Really like the embargo-related posts. Embargos are just like sending out a press release with the title “you are not as important as them”… just wait till the exclusive has passed!
How funny I was talking about that very embargo today – or actually a version of it that was so absurd, I could scarcely believe it.
ie. I wanted to write a snippet in a national on 27th July. The product will be available from 1st August (at which point anyone who wants to can take a picture of the product and use it.)
I was told that although I could write about said product, the image was embargoed until 9th August – insane.
In the end I did write about it, using another image, because it was only a space filler anyway.
Whilst I accept that there will always be an advertising-driven hierarchy in terms of publications, embargoes on the back of ‘exclusives’ do seem increasingly to be a hangover from an era that doesn’t exist any more – and thus well worth writing about and exposing as the foolishness that they are!
Couldn’t agree more. My pet peeve is when the product or news item is on the internet, it’s going into, say France, but you’re not allowed to write about it in the UK – even if your publication goes out internationally. Also, some of the embargo timings ar crazy. If a July preview is embargoed to October, the likelihood is that it will have sunk without a trace on my desk and I’ll have forgotten all about it.
Hmm, *strokes chin*… I tend to respect embargoes but as you say, why show us the bloody product if we can’t feature it? I was shown a really lovely XXX by XXX at the Selfridges Xmas in July press day and that’s embargoed until Oct 21st! I got such a nice photo of it too, *huff*
BBB you do make me chuckle!
I actually find these posts create a certain amount of buzz before an exclusive breaks in the papers/mags!
Online is certainly the way forward.
I just read this and an email came right after on some images that weren’t supposed to be up yet.
But… no one told me ahead. Maybe I was supposed to know seeing as it was fall into winter items, but hey I took photos and photos right there. This was not a huge deal, and I work with the Co. a lot and they’re great, but agree embargoes are a pain and someone always leaks them.
Had this happen with a big release that many bloggers came very far for last fall, signed embargoes, then a week later someone( they think it was someone int’l) leaked photos and we all had to wait ages to post ours. That sucked and we were profusely apologized to.
Your Brad Pitt deal is nuts. I know the product you mean and it was all over the internet. I think I may be the only blogger who didn’t post on it.
They have to take into condsideration too, that everyone reads international sites now. Whether mags, newspapers or blogs. So images and info cross the pond a lot , so to speak.