In a lame press release declaring “One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Giant Shrimp,” Long John Silver’s Restaurant announced that it will give away one giant shrimp to all comers on Monday, May 10, from 2 to 5 p.m. to celebrate NASA’s discovery of an ocean on Mars.
Silver’s president Steve Davis sent a personal letter to NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe, congratulating NASA and saying that Silver’s wants to be the first seafood restaurant on Mars. How about sending the person who wrote the release to Mars instead?
The letter also said, “The rovers have been extremely busy since they arrived on Mars – they’ve had ‘plenty of things on their plate.’ Now, with the discovery of ocean water, America can add one more thing to its plate – free Giant Shrimp.”
The release might have been funny if the shrimp were called “Martian Shrimp” or “Space Shrimp,” or even “Out of this World Shrimp,” instead of giant shrimp. The shrimp that are given away ought to have little space helmets on. Instead, it’s just another run of the mill, crassly commercial press release.
One Small Step for Man, One Giant Step For Giant Shrimp. Oy!
BL Ochman | March 28, 2004 | Permanent Link | Comments (6) | TrackBack (
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Categories: Advertising Campaigns, Case Studies, Cross Media, Internet PR, Marketing Strategy, Public Relations
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Well, if it’s so run-of-the-mill, why did you and a few dozen other bloggers link to it? For that matter, when’s the last time Long John Silvers has made the news? It apparently struck a chord with a few folks out there.
BTW, do you have HTML turned off in your comments? I was trying to link to this URL, but it doesn’t seem to let me put in an anchor tag, according the the preview:
http://www.daypop.com/search?q=link%3Awww.ljsilvers.com/press/freeshrimp.htm&t=w&max=672
I don’t think that being made fun of is great press. Id the release had been better written, it might have been reviewed differently.
Fine with me though, as it gives me another great example of a Press Release From Hell to include in my updated e-book on the topic. :>)
And, yes, the html is fine, probably just doesn’t work in preview, but does work on the site.
B.L.
Well, you may have mocked it (what was that about no publicity being bad publicity?), but some bloggers with much bigger audiences, like Anil Dash and BoingBoing, played it straight.
And, no, I don’t think HTML works in your comments at all. Here’s a test: is this a hyperlink?
Nope, you don’t have HTML turned on for comments. It’s a simple fix in the “Weblog config” section of Movable Type.
Another thing (and not to border on comment spam here), but having comments in reverse chronology is not blog standard. While posts are always reverse chron for any normal blog, most blogs I’m familiar with set comments in Ascending order, meaning the newest ones are at the bottom. Otherwise, the thread of conversation seems a bit out of wack to someone arriving late to the thread and reads comments at the top of the page responding to what was said in comments further down the page. Just a friendly FYI. DWIWYP.
Thanks for pointing out that I had a choice in how comments were set. And yes, you are right, html in comments WAS turned off.
And frankly, the fact that bloggers with bigger audiences than mine liked the Silver’s promotion doesn’t change my opinion. I have been doing PR for more than 25 years, and I find their release lame at best.
If it’s so great, why isn’t it getting covered outside of blogs?
As it turns out, the way the Silver’s offer was worded, they didn’t end up giving away a single shrimp anyway http://www.nbc4.tv/irresistible/2893875/detail.html
I handled the World’s Largest Tomato Contest for Miracle-Gro for several years, generating more than 50 million impressions, and we never had a winner. I guarantee you that if I’d handled Silver, I’d have come up with a better promotion for them AND gotten extensive media coverage.