Public relations is a great thing … and if you have a television spot that will give your product/company exposure to millions, who in their right mind would turn that down? Well, a nightmare for a for a publicist is when a spot is offered and the client refuses to get on a plane and appear. Why? First of all, this makes your publicist look really bad, because they first of all they were contacting the media for you. When publicists are effectively pitching media and they are getting attention among the thousands of pitches the producers receive, they are not in the best light when they have to email the individual back with a “no” after they have taken the time to read the pitch. Second, as a business owner why on earth would you not want to do this?! One national television spot = maximum exposure. At least in our case, when this did occur (and are not a liberty to share the details of who and what show), we had back up. As I post, I have a very happy camper flying down to Universal Studios to tape for a national spot. The point is …. if you hire a publicist and refuse to travel, you may want to rethink your marketing strategy.
