Second City Style is at a loss. A loss of words, believe it or not. Our friends over at Bag Snob are currently being harassed and abused by an employee of a public relations firm because they would not endorse their client’s products. The client is Zina Eva who is obviously a designer/manufacturer of handbags.
Here is a synopsis of what it going on….
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"We weren’t going to do an editorial on this bag line but have received over a dozen crazy harassment emails from the PR girl representing them so we decided to put it out there so you can stay clear of this line of horribly made and very cheap bags. Kelly first received an email two months ago from Zina Eva’s rep asking to participate in our monthly bag giveaway but after receiving the samples this weekend we decided the bags were not up to Bag Snob par and we couldn’t possibly endorse it let alone give it to our readers.
We promptly contacted them and told them we’d return the bags and will not be able to include them in our monthly giveaway but the PR girl turned nasty and started sending us harassment emails with racist overtones. Let’s see, she accused us of using fake last names because our names are English/European yet we don’t look European (Basically non-white people are not allowed to have European surnames according to this genius PR girl) and then she accused us of trying to scam them of $150 (wholesale price) bags?!?!??! How is it a scam if we didn’t want to keep the hideous bags for our giveaway?"
Here’s the skinny…
Over 57 million Americans read blogs averaging 23 hours online per week. Over 51% of blog readers shop online. Contrary to current public perception, not all PR is good PR. The better bloggers and ones with a vast readership are contacted by PR firms because their honest opinion is valued by those who read the blogs. You have to be prepared to take your lumps if your products are sub par.
Regardless, this type of lashing out because the PR firm did not get their way is just inexcusable. It’s like a baby throwing a tantrum and let’s face it, that’s never pretty. No person should ever tolerate racist abuse and/or personal attacks for any reason whatsoever. This is the utmost in unprofessionalism not to mention counter-productive. Editors have every right to refuse products and/or write honest reviews. If you can’t take the heat either get out of the kitchen or make a better product.
Therefore, Second City Style will be not be accepting any pitches form said PR firm, nor do we nor will we endorse Zina Eva (who should fire their PR firm immediately). In fact, we hope you don’t purchase their bags in protest…at least until they apologize for being totally out of line. Besides, we think pleather bags are rather icky, just like the Bag Snobs.
– Second City Style
Update: Since we posted this Zina Eva herself contacted Web Snob and has fired her PR firm. Read about it here…The protest is over. Should you want to purchase Zina Eva bags…go for it.
That’s just terrible! As someone who develops relationships with bloggers and as a blogger on the other side getting pitched, it is important to have an open, honest relationship. Relationship doesn’t equate to solely positive reviews of a product.
It makes me angry that many PR flacks (who have the attitude that they’re doing the blogger a favor -I know because I’ve received attitude and emails of this sort) don’t get it.
Thanks for the great post!! Incredibly informative of what not to do.
Cheers, Felicia
I’ve never heard such bad PR tactics. I admire Bag Snob for not promoting a product that does not live up to their standards, and the standards of their customers for that matter. Not only would promoting a poor product give them a bad name, it would have been horrible to keep working with such an unprofessional PR girl.
Like you said, not all PR is good PR. But not all purses are good purses either and we all have to make a choice about who we represent. Bag Snob made a good choice- but Zina Eva, not so much.