Media Training Tip: The Irresistible Product Mention
When you’re giving an interview to a journalist and the interview isn’t specifically about the product or service you’re promoting, you need to find a way to work it into the interview in a way that makes it irresistible, i.e. you’ve said it in such a way that the journalist would have a hard time leaving it out of the story. Here’s one example…
Video transcript
I saw a great example this weekend of the irresistible product mention. If you want to use the media to stand out and grow your business, it’s worth knowing about the technique.
When you’re being interviewed, the journalist isn’t obliged to mention the things you might want her to… unless the interview is specifically about the thing you’re promoting… like when Hollywood stars give interviews around the time their films come out.
The example I saw this weekend is from this profile of Russel and Kate Howcroft. It’s a profile of the husband and wife. It’s not an article about Russel’s new book, but undoubtedly he was hoping it would get a mention in the piece.
Kate mentions the name of the book in the interview then says, “Considering the way he walks, it’s kind of cute that it’s published by Penguin.”
The journalist writing the piece couldn’t resist including that bit of cheeky colour. I would have included it too. But there’s no way to include the funny bit about the way Russel walks without mentioning the book because the reference to Penguin doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Maybe Kate is naturally colourful. But Russel is in advertising, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them had a couple of stories and lines rehearsed before the interview. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Unless you just like being in the media, there has to be something in it for you.
So if you’re not being interviewed specifically about the thing you want to promote, it’s worth spending a bit of time seeing if you can’t work a mention of it into something irresistible.
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