Comments on: Tales from the trade press: Clinique’s press office hell

By: Grigory Benter

Grigory Benter — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:56:35 +0000

Wow. You’ve been out-PR’d here by Clinique. They put a moat around their PR department to keep journalists out and you get blamed for being a lazy git because you didn’t try harder to swim across. Such is the glam life of a freelance business journalist.

By: Laura Newman

Laura Newman — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:16:18 +0000

While I see the side of you could have dug a little more to get the contact, I agree..you shouldn’t have had to. The job of the PR dept. is to make it easy for you to find them, reach them. Period. I just don’t see how a big brand like Clinique couldn’t have improved this system better. There are smaller brands dying and grateful for these media opportunities. I agree. It’s a flaw in their media relations strategy that could certainly use improvement. Thanks for sharing!

By: Freelance Unbound

Freelance Unbound — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:01:37 +0000

Ah, if only. Clinique requires you to register with them so they can approve you before actually giving you a phone number to call.

I know, I know – I could have unearthed a phone number if I had really tried. My shortcomings are glaring. It’s the brand communications snafu I think is interesting here…

By: Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:57:52 +0000

Is there an acronym for “pick up the damn phone and call”?

By: Freelance Unbound

Freelance Unbound — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:34:02 +0000

Blimey – I’m deluged with comments and suggestions.

Thanks to all, especially the suggestions for how to contact Clinique. Truth is I didn’t really pay attention to whether or not Clinique was responding to my pro forma registration, as it was just one brand of many I was asking for information.

It didn’t matter so much for the story one way or another. The key question for the brand is how approachable they are and whether they want to gain media exposure or not. I’d suggest that Clinique’s PR strategy is a bit poor in this regard…

By: Ryan Derousseau

Ryan Derousseau — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:22:38 +0000

Oops, nevermind. Dave beat me to it. Estee Lauder was the key, though.

By: Ryan Derousseau

Ryan Derousseau — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:20:53 +0000

Hey, sounds like a tough situation. I mentioned your situation on a blog I write for, and if you ever need to contact Clinique again, here’s a suggestion. http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/freelance/cliniques_strange_pr_department_168888.asp#more

By: Freelance Unbound

Freelance Unbound — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:01:31 +0000

Ha! Yes – you have me there. I didn’t pursue it as hard as I could.

Two key points though – [1] your contacts are in the US, and this was a UK story, so that might not have got me as far as one would hope (though I certainly should have tried emailing the US in case they could forward me to the right contact). [2] the main point of the story is how poor the brand’s communication strategy is – which I think holds true, even if I had done my job better.

Thanks for the comment…

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:44:22 +0000

You have only yourself to blame. The following took me less than one minute: (1) Google “spokesman for Clinique,” and results include info that the brand is owned by Estee Lauder Cos.; (2) Google “spokesman for Estee Lauder Cos.” and first result is the company site, with sub-link to “corporate news”; click on that, and it gets you to page of current news releases, with a tab to “media contacts” including a button for “our brands”; and there, in alphabetical order, is this: Clinique — CeCe Coffin 212-xxx-xxxx 212-xxx-xxxx and her email address.
Man, was that hard…

By: Freelance Unbound

Freelance Unbound — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:43:14 +0000

Welcome Virginia. Yes – that really would be the icing on the cake…