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May 10, 2004

Don't quote me | Three mistakes companies make in press release quotes —and how to avoid them

By Skip King
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore ˆ—
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling;
Quoth the Raven: "We are very excited. This represents a tremendous opportunityˆ…"

Okay, maybe I'm straining a bit for effect here, but the Raven's "quoth" is no dumber than the quotes included daily in thousands of press releases. In fact, it's identical.

It's what I call a WAVE (We Are Very Excited) quote. All too often, WAVEs and their variants are used when businesses announce new product lines, expansions or other developments. WAVEs are one of three classic mistakes companies make when quoting executives in their press releases.

Truth is, the quotes in most press releases are crafted, not coined. That's not a bad thing. For starters, a good press release writer generally knows how to sequence the story ˆ— and the quotes ˆ— better than the executive responsible for the news. But often, executives ˆ— and a surprising number of PR people ˆ— insist on language in quotes that undermines the effectiveness of a release.

1. Drowning in the WAVEs
So what's wrong with WAVEs? Well, for starters, they're clichés, which makes them boring. Yes, you see them occasionally in newspapers. When you do, it's a cinch that a reporter on deadline couldn't reach anyone in the company in time for a real comment.

Being "excited" doesn't make you newsworthy, nor does it help explain why your news is important. Besides, nobody actually talks like this, which makes WAVE quotes instantly suspect to the reader.

The worst thing is that WAVE quotes put you in the silly position of reacting to your own news, rather than being a part of it. Effective quotes explain and build your perceived expertise. WAVEs don't, and they constitute a missed opportunity to position your company with customers and other stakeholders.

Huge companies make this mistake, by the way. Example: Wal-Mart recently bought out a retail chain in Brazil. The quote from Wal-Mart's president in Brazil:

"We are very excited to have this opportunity to help more people in Brazil improve their purchasing power," said Trius. "We are also delighted to welcome Bompreco employees as the newest members of our team. This acquisition demonstrates our long-term commitment to the Brazilian market and specifically to the Northeastern part of the country."

Classic WAVE. It's reactive, it doesn't move the story ahead and the tone manages to be both self-serving ("demonstrates our long-term commitment toˆ…") and condescending at the same time ("help more people in Brazil improve their purchasing power").

Some ˆ— even all ˆ— of what Mr. Trius "said" may be true, but can you really see a newspaper printing this stuff as written? Or the newspaper's readers buying the bull?

Things can get even worse when two or more companies enter into a strategic partnership or financing arrangement. Everyone wants his name in the press release, so you end up with WAVE after WAVE. Sort of like the ocean, only much less interesting.

2. Limiting the lawyers
The second classic error is illustrated by this quote from a recent Microsoft press release:

"Consumer and corporate demand for PCs continued to exceed our expectations and resulted in solid double-digit revenue growth for Windows(r) XP and Office products," said John Connors, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "In the second quarter, the overall corporate IT market also began to show signs of a recovery, with increased demand for both desktop and server products. Going forward, we will continue to focus on driving broader customer adoption of our latest enterprise products, including Office 2003, Windows Server(tm) 2003, Exchange Server 2003, and Small Business Server 2003."

Yikes. Know what happened here? Dollars to dimes a lawyer wrote the release (with a few nudges from the marketing department). Lawyers should certainly vet news releases. But they probably shouldn't write them, any more than PR practitioners should provide legal advice.

How about this instead: "Sales beat expectations in two core markets and are looking up in others. And we plan to enhance sales by putting more marketing support behind our new products."

Says it all, doesn't it? The most curious thing about Microsoft's blather is that the story is actually great news for both Microsoft and the U.S. economy ˆ— yet that fact is camouflaged. The only time to create such a tortuous quote is when you absolutely, positively don't want a quote from your organization to make it into a news story. On rare occasions, that's a desirable goal.

3. Self-serving nonsense
The third error? Call it autoeroticism. Both the Microsoft and Wal-Mart quotes contain a fair dose of it. Companies and executives often try to use news release quotes to pump up the company or its products ˆ— or themselves. It's all rather foolish because, with the exception of financial releases, the only people who actually read those quotes are reporters.

Reporters have finely tuned bullshit detectors, and nothing pegs their meters like a plenitude of self-serving nonsense. Check out this gem from a 2003 Universal Studios release about a successful fundraiser:

"In announcing the record-breaking fundraising results and the new grants, Larry Kurzweil, president and chief operating officer, Universal Studios Hollywood said: "Once again, the employees of Universal Studios Hollywood, our partners and our friends have shown tremendous generosity and a level of commitment that has enabled this program to expand into some areas of critical importance to our community. We have a keen sense of our responsibility to give something back to the families in our own community and in keeping with our parent company Universal Studios' long-standing philanthropic initiatives, we've identified the issues of education, children's health and services to the homeless as three areas where we'd like to make a difference. I hope and expect that when our employees and other donors see the uses to which these funds will be employed, they'll feel as proud as I am to be associated with this program."

Wowee. One hundred and forty-seven words, and it seems like half of 'em are adjectives describing how saintly the company is. Is this any way to build credibility?

Keep it simple
Quotes can be an important component of press releases and news stories. Properly used, they flesh out stories and give them better flow. They provide support if reporters can't reach you, and establish the credibility of the people quoted as expert on the topic. But remember: Including quotes in releases is a convention, not a rule. As Abraham Lincoln said, "'tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

So why do companies make these errors? Lots of times, it's laziness ˆ— an unwillingness to go the extra mile and construct something solid, rather than a cliché. Sometimes it's ego.

And, unfortunately, the fact that large companies make these errors sets a tone for others.

Consider this: Most newspapers are written to a roughly ninth-grade reading level. The above quotes all require college-level skill. Okay for Wall Street, perhaps, but if you want your story told on Main Street, you need to make the comment accessible.

The solution? Try to create quotes that help tell the story ˆ— and help position your company. Think active. Think brief. Let the quote express a key concept in the larger story itself.

For example: Let's say you run a hotel. You're adding a new wing and redecorating the rest of the joint, and you're prepping a press release on it. Which quote helps move the story and position your hotel better?

"We're very excited to offer these new services to our guests. The expansion of our property will serve the growing number of transient guests in the Portland area, particularly in key visitation periods such as summer, and the redecoration of the remainder of our property will add a higher level of amenities for our guests."

Or: "We study guest interests and visitation trends. We're doing this to provide better service and meet growing demand for hotel rooms in the area."

The second quote says that you're attuned to the market, listen proactively and work to improve the value and experience your guests receive ˆ— because you care about them.

Taking a chainsaw to a potential quote to cut it down to the essence is one way to make your quotes effective. And if you can't do that, write the quotes last. Get all the relevant facts on paper. Then take a key point or points of the story, and turn that into the quote. Then trim it to bare bones.

You can include the details you removed from the "quote" in expository paragraphs before or after the quote itself. But keep the quotes themselves simple and to the point. Your story will be more readable and interesting to the reporter ˆ— which means that it will be more readable and interesting to the public.

In the third and final installment of this series, we'll guide you through the technique of self-editing your work to make it more appealing to reporters.

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