It’s that time of year.
The CES press list is flying around. Exhibiting vendors have it, and are sharing it with their PR firms. As I write this, many tech PR folks are in an Excel doc, investigating these attending “media” and highlighting the ones they intend to contact. Journalists are already starting to get emails with different permutations of “hoping to meet you and CES,” “new product launching at CES,” and “please visit [company name] booth at CES” subject lines. And PR folks that don’t have the list are firing off emails to the CES management asking for permission to view it (and likely being refused).
But what’s funny about all of this is how many of the folks on the CES list (from what I’m hearing) are not really “press.” It’s not surprising, because it’s been happening routinely with events since anyone can remember.
Is someone who is employed by a tech vendor, and writes one blog post every three months a member of the “press”? Because I hear that applies to a number of contacts on the CES press list.
There is apparently little vetting done (by CES or any event) to make sure that folks on a press list are indeed press. I can’t tell you how many times I bump into someone at an event at the Moscone and see them with a press badge (and they happily snicker when I comment on it). Duping an event for a press badge is a way to circumvent attendance fees and otherwise get access.
And events for the most part let this whole charade continue because it’s to their benefit to have a massive press list (that they can dangle to entice sponsorships, exhibition, and the whole host of items they are trying to sell to give folks access to a captive audience).
But it’s annoying as hell when you are the point person at an exhibiting company – and you are having to manually parse a list of “press” that has an incredibly low rate of legit press (i.e., “opportunities”).
I wonder if it is also annoying to legit members of the press to show up at an event and have to wait in a quarter mile line for press registration.
You would think this whole rigamarole would have dissolved by 2010. It would actually be hilarious if it weren’t for all the wasted time.
Posted by Tara Dunion
December 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Travis:
The International CES agrees with you that press at CES should be working press with recent tech editorial coverage to show for it. For this reason, we created, and strictly adhere to, the following credential requirements that all CES media must adhere to.
You can see it at CESweb.org/pressreg.
Regards, Tara
Posted by BillBo
June 8, 2010 at 6:22 am
I was at International CES, and I too knew a number of folks there wearing press badges that are not press. But when you look at the high cost of manually verifying every application, you can understand why event producers don’t bother.
This is a huge problem.
Posted by Travis Van
June 8, 2010 at 9:48 am
Event producers guard their press lists like they are intellectual property – sharing them with only their exhibitors. They also tend to pump up the overall publicity impact that their events have, and use it as a selling point.
So my point is that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim to have some amazing representation of media and to dangle some list like it is a priceless artifact AND put zero energy into vetting that list.
What – exactly – is so difficult about verifying press? You create a form field that requires examples of two recent articles. You have a dedicated person to vet those applications. It’s been done successfully by a handful of events consistently for years. Interop – for example. That is one of the larger IT events in the world. You see their press lists and it’s a very small margin of folks that are not really media / analysts.
I don’t buy the “high cost of manually verifying.” The very largest events that have the most impostors trying to sneak in as press – they have the largest revenues and the most cash to hire dedicated people to oversee the process of keeping that list legit.