That is the question.
What is the answer? Yeah or nay?
You secured coverage for your product in a publication or on the news. Congrats! Now the dilemma…is it okay to leverage that coverage into more coverage in other media outlets? The quandary is that you’d love editors to know the buzz that your product has received, yet some editors are turned off by clips in competing magazines.
We polled a few editors and publicists and got their advice on when to use clips from other publications and when not to. For these examples, we are using the imaginary Scrub-a-Dub organic soap, made by a small start-up company.
Yeah or Nay? Yeah. You could pitch this to local and regional publications and actually craft the pitch as ” Scrub-a-Dub, a local start-up organic soap-maker gets chosen as one of Oprah’s favorite things for the holiday.
Rule of Thumb: If the recognition is so large that it’s a story in itself, then pitch it. Be careful to only pitch this type of story to local or regional outlets and not large national outlets that would compete with the other outlet that’s already covered it.
Case #2: Scrub-a-Dub is featured in several women’s publications included Lucky* and Glamour*, and you’d like to get it into Marie Claire*
Yeah or Nay? Nay. Don’t send editors at Marie Claire clips of the coverage in Lucky or Glamour. One editor told us, “This is a total turn-off when I see that the product has been featured in magazines that are our direct competition or have the same demographics as us.”
Rule of Thumb: Editors want to provide their readers with fresh new finds, not a product that has over-exposure.
Case #3: A newspaper reporter has decided to do a business story on Scrub-a-Dub and wants to profile the owners on how they followed their passion to create the product.
Yeah or Nay? Yeah. When a story is being written in a completely different type of outlet–in a business section rather than a woman’s consumer magazine–then the newspaper reporter will often actually use the clips as background information and mention the successes that the business has had in media recognition.
Rule of Thumb: If the previous coverage will help the reporter with information about the client, and isn’t the same type of coverage, then it may be helpful to ask the reporter if they’d like to have clips of previous coverage.
Case #4: You’ve gotten several big hits including a snippet in Self Magazine*, a product review in Allure*, a celeb endorsement in OK* magazine and now you’d like to put it all on the product website under “media coverage” or “press links.”
Yeah or Nay? It depends. Not the easiest answer with this one. One publicist said ‘yeah’ because it builds credibility amongst your customers. Another said ‘nay’ but only during the initial launch of the product, so that seeing what others have done recently doesn’t turn off editors at competing magazines.
Rule of Thumb: If you are in the midst of a major PR campaign and launch, then you should probably keep media coverage under wraps. But if you have an established brand and are working on new products, then its fine and helpful to your customers to see that your brand is popular and getting a lot of buzz.
Case #5: A local city lifestyle magazine is covering your product launch and the other competing city magazine calls you for inclusion. Do you tell the editor that you are being covered elsewhere?
Yeah or Nay? Don’t lie. If they ask you if their competition has done anything on the product, then mention they are planning it for an upcoming issue. But if they don’t ask, you do not have no to disclose the information, as long as you are aware that there may be consequences. One such editor told us, “I recently assigned an interview with a local expert on a new product launch and after the magazine had gone to the printer, I opened the competition and saw the same type of article.” The editor wasn’t happy, but admits she didn’t ask for an exclusive, however, she would have appreciated knowing about it so that her magazine didn’t look bad by having an old story by the time it hit newsstands. She might think twice before she trusts the publicist or client in the future.
Rule of Thumb: Be honest and know the consequences. Competing editors often have very contentious relationships, especially in local publications. If you want to have a good ongoing working relationship with them, it’s best to be up-front. If you aren’t up-front, they may not offer coverage in the future.
Tallying the votes…
Hopefully these case studies will help you navigate the do’s and don’ts when it comes to sharing coverage with editors. As with any rule of thumb, there’s always the exception, but the consensus that we found amongst the editors and publicists that we pulled was this one rule of thumb: It’s all about size.
The big fish don’t want to know about each other and the little fish want to keep up with the big fish. So the bigger the publication, the less likely they’ll be favorable to seeing other media coverage. The smaller the publication, the more they’ll be impressed with the national exposure your product has received.
*All mentions of publications are for examples and are not meant to express their opinions or preferences.
Gifted Communications 