FROM TOKIO TO ANTWERP (TO ROTTERDAM)

Every event my fellow online media friends and I face the same struggle: what are the criteria to get invites. No, not for discounts or goodiebags but to get an understanding of the PR world. PR companies claim to be working on an objective level with rankings, but really, who believes that. In a time where the amount of followers is far from representative for your real reach this is kinda a naive thing to say. (And it’s really not working like that.)

So yes we can only take this personal, very personal. It’s all about how much you can small talk and fake it till you make it because nobody really and honestly likes every brand or company they meet. But if your social skills are on fleek and you promote like crazy together with some connections, you will get really far. With the change from a blog to this new website, I lost the energy to do that and decided to go an other direction. I didn’t want to give away free advertorial space away anymore for things I just don’t really want to support. Making sweatshops my main subject also had a big influence.

But why this rant? Well I’m not jealous to whoever gets more or gets invited more, they probably deserve it. Most of the time they work way harder than me and go all the way. Creds for that because I can’t anymore (and I got that lazy gene). What does frustrate me is the total lack of understanding PR strategies. Correct me if I’m wrong but the more money/positive feedback a company gets the better right?
Well after years of being in this world it happened a lot: my favorite brand opening a store or whatever, me not getting invited. Yes of course I was sad to not get the goodiebag but what frustrated me more was that all those times I would probably be the only one to really know the brand and buy stuff. And transferring this honestly to my readers.

This happened also with the store opening of Uniqlo. I was probably the only one who knows Tadashi Yanai and what they stand for and I informed myself about the store opening many times. Probably my ranking wasn’t high enough but I found a way to go (bloggers got each others backs – sometimes). I bought some crazy beautiful Uniqlo X Christoph Lemaire sweaters that show the real face of Uniqlo: Quality for a good price and made with (mostly) good ethics.

I will mention them a lot, not to please pr people but to please the brand, because isnt that the goal?

I do take this very personal but I refuse to keep on smiling politely all the time. These frustrations happen on a daily basis among my friends (yes I can call them fiends by now). And I truly don’t see the point in not finding the perfect match for your clients. I’m truly grateful for all the opportunities I already got from amazing PR people who really understand their job but the disappointments have been as big. Please  PR people, work on that  since your existance is of real importance in the online media world!

And now I’m off to Rotterdam, partly running away from this little Antwerp bubble and hoping for fun things to happen. See ya!