Who needs social media marketing?  Back in my day we flacks used to actually meet reporters face-to-face over a nice big lunch, fueled by alcohol and generously provided by our clients. We used to grease up the reporters and get ‘em good and tanked.  Then, once back at the office, we’d call them on the phone and they would actually take the call.  They might even remember us.  Of course, then we’d mention how they promised us a cover story over lunch and since they were drunk they wouldn’t remember.  After that tab, they felt too guilty to turn us down.  So we’d really get that cover story.

Sometimes, we even brought the clients along!  (If you got them drunk enough they wouldn’t remember if said cover story never comes through.)  Sure, we got fat doing it, but no one had a Facebook page to brag about how much working out they were doing, so it was all good.  There were no tell-tale profile pictures sporting our growing waistbands.  Boy, I miss the good old days.

[Editor’s Note: Mr. Publicity is an ‘old-school’ flack, though not old.  They will be offering some tidbits from time to time about antediluvian flackery (or at least what they claim to remember of it) — when press releases actually got  printed and mailed, phone (or smoke signal) was the best way to build a relationship, and people actually ran into newsrooms yelling “Stop The Presses” (ok, I’m not sure that one ever really did happen)]

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