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Feb 21, 2007 at 02:55 PM |
I didn't get a chance before now to comment on last Friday's news regarding SanDisk's cutting of jobs and expenses. It was late in the evening here in the UK when the press release was issued, and late in east coast U.S. as well.
SanDisk used the tried and tested method of releasing bad news, late on a Friday. The rationale behind this is to limit the impact, believing that Wall Street has gone home to Long Island early as usual for the weekend and three quarters of the world's press have also gone to the pub by then! By Monday, the news is already old and therefore the impact is greatly reduced.
The genius on this occasion of releasing bad news on that Friday was the fact that it was an official US holiday on the Monday, pushing out coverage by another day. Brilliant PR strategy, I must say!
Could SanDisk have issued the news on Thursday for instance? I doubt not!
Ironically, I wasn't in the pub that night (rare, I know) but was still working from home (honest), but had pretty much given up on searching for news as it had been a very slow day, as is typical for a Friday.
However, I had a gut feeling that evening that something was brewing, especially as it had been a dull news day and it was a Friday! Before pressing the ‘off' button on my PC, I thought I would check the wires just one more time. That's when I saw the SanDisk press release.
So I wrote it up and posted it that night. Because of that, it got picked up all weekend and then on Tuesday the U.S. beat a trail to the story, with media sites picking up on the story.
So in that sense, SanDisk didn't get away with it completely, but they did have success in limiting the interest - no question about that.
However, I do find it bad taste that any company should stoop to that level and release bad news so late on a Friday. What impression does this give to journalists about the workings within a company?
Though PR folk know the Friday rule, I am not sure they think much about the lasting impression such games have.
The reason I say that is that I phoned the PR folk at SanDisk last year to see if I could interview a particular executive to appear in our print publication. Though I didn't actually get any real response, I was still interested in doing this. But after last Friday's games, I am not sure I want to bother now!
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