Shall we laugh at another PR email? This one's entitled...
Your personal invite to the <PDC> event
But it's not addressed to me personally, it just leaps in with...
Good Morning, I hope you are well
I was, thank you.
My names is <name> and I work here at <Media Agency>, I’m currently doing blogger outreach for my client <Property Development Company> <(PDC)> for their upcoming event early this June.
She calls it "blogger outreach", by which of course she means recruiting folk to promote her client's project on social media.
<PDC> are looking to fully develop the <Zone 4 suburb> area with architecture, retail and leisure space. See website here
So yes, we're talking flats. And yes, we're talking apartments marketed initially overseas. Indeed if you're in Kuala Lumpur this weekend you can pop along to the Marriott Hotel for the exclusive launch of this particular development's third tranche of flats. Alas I doubt very much that any of the potential buyers read my blog.
It would be amazing if you could attend as your Lifestyle blog is the perfect fit for the <PDC> ethos.
I find it particularly distressing to have been branded a Lifestyle blogger. Has she not read all the tedious posts I write about railways, bus routes and seaside walks? More to the point, has she not read alltheposts where I slag off marketing campaigns for greedy get-rich-quick apartment developments shamelessly targeted at foreign investors? I am so not the perfect fit for her so-called ethos.
Really like your recent “Hi how are you” piece, social habits really are bizarre,
They often do this, blogger outreachers. They look back a day or two to find a post they can relate to - preferably one with tons of interactive comments - then tell you how much they like it. I was not taken in.
We would love you to come along to the event to experience how great <Zone 4 suburb> is becoming
You'd laugh if I told you the name of the location. It's no hellhole, but equally it's nowhere any canny Londoner would choose to live for reasons of prestige. For marketing purposes, it's being advertised as "near Hampstead" and "well connected to Central London and the City just 30 minutes away", neither of which is strictly true. And the development is absolutely not, as the blurb in one Hong Kong newspaper reads, "located in the luxury neighborhood of <Zone 4 suburb>", nor as the official description has it, "in fashionable North West London".
We would also like to discuss long-term blogging opportunities and featured articles. Could you tell us what opportunities you currently offer?
She really hasn't read much of my blog, has she? There are no long-term blogging opportunities for commercial interests here, nor featured articles paid for by sponsors. I guess she just assumed all bloggers were that shallow, so I'd lap up the chance to post words I hadn't needed to write myself in return for perks and dosh.
Please see the further event details below:
SAVE THE DATE: Wednesday 11th June 2014, 16:00
<PDC> marketing suite, <road where warehouse used to be>, <Zone 4 suburb>, NW<x>
Some of us work on Wednesday afternoons, you know.
**Transport from Central London will be provided**
And that's priceless. Having spent much of the promotional brochure and obligatory YouTube video going on about how brilliantly located this development is by tube, the PR company want to whisk bloggers there by road instead.
To celebrate the launch, we will showcase the product on offer; provide sushi demonstrations to highlight the close proximity of famous <local attraction closed in 2008> and entertainment will be delivered by special guest, DJ <pun on location name>. <Asset Management Company> will also give you an exclusive preview of the marketing suite and show apartment.
So essentially it'll be like attending a timeshare plug, but with raw fish and cheesy music. Count me out, thanks. And that mention of <local attraction closed in 2008> is particularly poignant, because it would have really appealed to the Far Eastern clientèle this development is trying to attract, but is itself being redeveloped into flats, offices and a Morrisons.
Formal invitations will follow shortly.
They won't, not after the reply I sent.
It was announced yesterday that house prices in London have risen by as much as 17% in the last year. Maintain that rate and prices will be more than double what they are today by 2019, and three times as much by 2021. So how sad to receive a PR email from a project team bent on diverting newbuild property abroad to maximise profits, rather than assisting ordinary local people to gain a much-needed first foothold on the ladder. We're all screwed if London's housing market overheats, and it's people like <Property Development Company> and <Media Agency> who are hastening the conflagration.
