Every press release that comes to the UGN news desk claims to be the “best” or the “leader” in this or that field. It must be the rules of writing press releases in marketing 101. We always believe Amazon though — or should we? Glen Fleishman asks the same question
In this interesting article by Timothy Noah of Slate.com, How the online retail giant hoodwinks the press. –
The day after Christmas, Amazon put out a press release declaring the 2008 holiday season “its best ever, with over 6.3 million items ordered worldwide on the peak day, Dec. 15.”
Favorite TidBITS writer, Glenn Fleishman, posted this to his Glenlog blog:
When I first saw this release, I was incensed, because it’s garbage. It’s exactly the kind of press release that gives PR professionals (and the companies they work for) the reputation as hacks.
Amazon is notably chary about releasing data about their operations and sales, but producing a release in which the unit volume is measured and no figures are available about dollars or margins makes them sound like a bunch of posing losers.
I was incensed about the announcement because UGN’s Amazon affiliate revenue has been on a steady downturn ever since they instituted the “Buy Used” buttons, and that downturn has accellerated over the past 6 months. Lynn and I review books, and then hope a few pennies of revenue will come when someone clicks to buy. But that ain’t happening. Oh, we have lots of clicks. But no sales.
Could Amazon’s figures really be true? I don’t know.
Glen’s blog posting: blog.glennf.com
Timothy Noah’s Slate article
