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| Lori Rosen |
When I arrived at the ABC Studios, I was told they don’t accept packages. Please mail it. I was told it was for security reasons. Really? It was a magazine.
For decades, Rosen Group represented magazines including People—home of the legendary Bachelor of the Year reveal—Good Housekeeping, Inc., Real Simple, Southern Living, Car and Driver, Smithsonian, Wine Spectator, The Atlantic, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Reader’s Digest. The list goes on and on, and we loved every minute of it—from launching new titles to building buzz around mature brands.
One of the hallmarks of magazine PR was the issue drop. Magazines arrived at media outlets in every imaginable form: wrapped in bows, tied to champagne bottles, tucked into brightly colored bubble envelopes or nestled inside Tiffany boxes. And they almost always came with a bold label shouting, “SPECIAL ISSUE INSIDE.”
So when a colleague told me that ABC was interested in receiving the new Hollywood Reporter parody from the Harvard Lampoon, I volunteered to hand-deliver it to the studios. A little nostalgia never hurts.
It struck me as a sad commentary on where our business is headed—and on how we are steadily eroding the very opportunities that allow PR people to build genuine media relationships. The hand-delivery of a package may seem insignificant, but the five-minute conversation that comes with it can lead to a new idea, a new contact or an opportunity that never would have happened through email.
They eventually accepted the package. PR people can be persistent.
Still, the experience felt like a sharp reminder of how much our business—and our culture—has changed. In an industry built on relationships, sometimes it seems we’re making it harder and harder to actually have them.
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Lori Rosen is president at Rosen Group.
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