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PR Fuel: Weird Scenes Inside a PR MineThere were five of us - three reporters, a Wall Street equity analyst and me. We sat in the conference room chatting and drinking coffee. Mostly, we waited.A company had invited us for a meet-and-greet with top management. The schedule called for us to watch a presentation, take part in a question-and-answer session with the chief executive officer and chief financial officer, and then have lunch with all involved. The event was scheduled to begin at 10:00 AM at a hotel because the company is based out west. The five attendees were all on time and we were greeted by a public relations person who works for a large shop. She cheerfully showed us into the conference room and said the company executives would be in shortly. In the meantime, we should enjoy coffee and danishes. Time seemed to pass slowly. By 10:15, I was on my second cup of coffee, no small feat considering I probably drink about 20 cups of Joe a year. When 10:30 rolled around, the PR person popped into the room and cheerfully (she was cheerful all day) apologized for the delay and said the executives would be there momentarily. "Did they get stuck in traffic?" one of the reporters asked. "No, no, no. They're here," the PR person replied. "Something came up and they're just delayed." The word delayed wafted in the air because the PR person was on her way out the door. "This is a joke," the Wall Street analyst said to no one in particular. Heads, buried in BlackBerries, nodded in agreement. At around 10:45, a half-dozen people entered the room. The CEO and CFO were there, flanked by the company's head of corporate communications and head of investor relations, the outside PR person, and a minion of some sort. There was a pause as we expected a round of introductions and handshakes. Instead, the PR person moved to the front of the room and introduced the executives. The CEO spoke first, barely acknowledging our existence. He ran through a PowerPoint presentation and seemed to have memorized several talking points, none of which were very interesting. Some of the language seemed to have come straight from the company's website. Next up was the CFO, who ran through the company's financials. This was an excruciating exercise because the company had announced its most recent quarterly financial results less than two weeks earlier, and everyone in the room was familiar with the information. To close out the scripted portion of the day, the head of investor relations gave us what amounted to a canned pitch to invest that was better aimed at potential investors, not people charged with writing about and analyzing a company. The Q&A got off to a rocky start and never found smooth ground. The C-level executives seemed defensive and annoyed that we didn't toss softball questions. I asked a question about profit margins, a subject that either the CEO or CFO should have answered. Instead, the investor relations person chimed in. A reporter asked about marketing strategy and received a response from the corporate communications person. After about ten questions, the PR person chirped, "We'll take one more question." With the Q&A over, the C-level executives quickly made the rounds. They shook our hands, thanked us for coming and then left the room. It happened so fast that the five attendees, me included, were caught off-guard. "Who is ready for lunch!" the PR person said. The Wall Street analyst was smart. He got the heck out of Dodge at that point, muttering an apology and saying he had to get back to work. Two reporters then demurred and bailed by the time we left the building. That left me, one reporter and the PR person. I had a meeting a few blocks away scheduled for ninety minutes later, so I went along to get my free lunch. The food at lunch was good, but the conversation was better. "So, what the hell was that all about?" the reporter asked the PR person. At this point, it became clear to me that the reporter and the flack had an existing relationship. "I'm really sorry," the PR person said. "That was just horrible. They asked me to set that up and then they wanted to cancel at the last minute. I had to plead with them to go through with the meeting." The story that emerged was this: The company was tired of getting hammered in the media by people it perceived to be critics, the Wall Street analyst being tops on its list. The reporters were invited because they cover the company as part of their beat. I was invited because I've spoken to the media about the company a number of times and, in the words of the PR person, management believes that I am "unbiased." The executives got cold feet because on the morning of the meeting, the analyst had negatively mentioned the company in a piece of research and said he would have additional comments after the meeting. (This research generally goes out to brokerage clients and institutional investors such as hedge fund managers.) The PR person was then stuck with clients who didn't want to go through with the meeting. She explained to them how poorly it would reflect on the company, but it was actually the investor relations person who forced the meeting to go on, saying that if it was canceled, the attendees might infer that something was amiss. I asked the PR person if this was the first time something like this had happened and she said that it was "par for the course" for this particular client. In fact, she said that her firm's contract with the company was expiring in less than a month and the firm had decided that the client wasn't worth the trouble. "They cause more problems than the retainer is worth," she said. Summing up the meeting for my clients in a research note that day, I wrote: "[The executives] did not exhibit the type of judgment I would expect from people running a company of this size and visibility. The meeting was awkward, unnecessary and fruitless. It was the kind of event I loved when I was a journalist because it would have made a good story. In my current role, it just makes a weird story."
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