I’m getting mighty tired of hearing executives demanding press releases for every little thing, turning smart PR organizations into press release factories with little strategic value.

What gives?   I recently heard that one CEO demanded at least 40 press releases a quarter be posted on the company’s news page to impress potential shareholders. (Are investors so dumb as to make decisions on the number of press releases? Seems so 1999 to me.)  Another PR group said that the product marketing people had a press release quota as part of their performance evaluation. So whether a product was newsworthy or not, the product marketing people hounded PR for their precious releases.

Then I see a silly release that SAP put out last week claiming that customers were migrating from their competitor Infor to SAP. The release is so full of jargon and marketing speak that’s it’s almost a parody of bad PR.

The really funny part was that I was with Infor folks last week in Europe. When they read the release they laughed (and posted this blog response)  because the customers and partners that SAP cited as moving from Infor to SAP  did so many moons ago for reasons that certainly wouldn’t be press release-worthy.   So much for any “news” in this release.

My guess is that some SAP marketing or sales manager thought it a good idea  to do a “momentum release” that they could give their sales reps who are competing in deals with Infor. In other words, press release as sales tool.

If PR gets no respect these days, it’s because too many people mistakenly think that press releases have some magical powers that will cure all types of business issues. If only.

Full disclosure: I’ve worked with SAP and am doing work for Infor. These views are part of my usual rants on dumb company marketing and PR stories.