Speakers

Who you pick to make the presentation(s) will naturally depend on the subject. However, do try to put senior people up in front of the journalists; it subtly emphasises the importance of the event if, for example, the journos are welcomed by your MD or general manager and then introduced to the R&D and marketing directors to make the presentations.

Needless to say, all your people at the press conference must be briefed with the points in Chapter 8 that we listed earlier. It’s all too easy (and sharp journalists know this!) to relax one’s guard a little too far after a pleasant buffet lunch and a glass or two of the venue’s house white, and say something it would have been better to have left unsaid. Remember the corporate disaster that resulted from the chairman of a certain retail chain cheerfully describing some of his products as ‘crap’ at a press conference!