Selling Ice to the Eskimos

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

Happy Easter weekend ... and thank goodness for Spring!

I've seen some good PR work this week and some real bad. PR is a very cost-effective process. Not as focused and targeted as paid advertising but when you do both, great things can happen.

Around Nashville, PR people were getting more sophisticated then the economy dropped out. Some now are simply not up to the job. A few are fantastic and as good as anyone in Hollywood, but more and more are rookies. Some actually hurt the artists and do NOTHING except act as paid obstructionist.

Not knowing your job and not being able to explain to an artist what the needs of the reporters are can potentially career ending. Perception is reality ... in this world today anyway

Making a call to CMT and a few of the Country radio prep services is hardly full-service PR. You need bigger fields to feed in. The major media, the non-Country full-time media, is mostly not interested in what you are doing on Music Row. It's ugly but true. For a time during the Garth Brooks and Shania Twain days, ET had an ear posted here. The tabloids lived off Nashville stories. Not anymore.

You have to work smarter and harder to get a wave to ripple. The paid "we will report anything" "media" is often now slow. They are paid and like the newspapers subscriptions are on the extinction list in their present form.

Access is a privilege, not a right for the press covering entertainment. You have to be careful in how you report. It is very hard to straddle that line of being a newsperson vs. the arm of a PR person.

Not set-up press events 30 miles from town at 6p at night. TV and real newspapers have a hard time making those time commitments. Of course, the full-time Country press will do whatever. TV and newspapers have leaner, meaner staffs. We all know radio stations have HAD leaner, meaner ands in some cases nonexistent staffs. Make the event something possible that everyone can cover ... make it VISUAL. TV needs pretty pictures and talking heads.

The full-time Country press aren't really in a competition. They are not rating every day like local TV. You can't throw an event with all the media in a small bullpen and expect good stories. TV takes time ... even daily news TV.

This is not PR school, but the labels are doing less ... there's less money to do anything. PR should be increased; if anything! It's money-smart. Want some advice? Make it easy for the media to do your story. Take down roadblocks and be able to think on your feet. Don't lie ... be on time!

It can drive both sides crazy ... and often does..

Can Music Row sell a hot babe with sexy pictures in 2010? Can a sound and visual be fabricated for a TV/radio campaign? It's happening now. In the end it is ALL about the music. Everything else comes after.