The beauty of corporate press releases

The Public Relations department in any company is often an "unproductive" unit, and the staff in those units are usually seen with sarcasm. The main work done by PR Department is issue press releases, reply to queries from customers (often the department only forwards the mails to the appropriate department) and design/approve advertisements. As evident, this department has very little job to do, and is often run with skeletal staff.

Here is a clever copy-paste job done by the PR department of a major automobile company in India. This company launched their Intercity coaches a couple of years back, with the tag line "Travel with the Star". This tag line is often cheaply pasted along the length of the company.

This is the press release issued by the company on October 07, 2009 (read the original here)
“We at APSRTC constantly endeavour to provide our customers the best in terms of luxury, comfort, safety & technology. Thus, Mercedes-Benz buses emerged as an obvious choice for us. Now our customers can truly experience unmatched comfort and luxury in their bus travel”; commented Mr. V. Dinesh Reddy, IPS, Vice-Chairman & M.D., Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC).
Now, whats wrong with the statement? Nothing, right? The VC&MD of APSRTC feels that the Merc bus is an "obvious" choice for them, since they endeavour to provide their customers the best in terms of luxury, comfort, safety & technology. Its all fine for now...

...read this press release, issued on June 06, 2010 (Read here):

“We at Parveen Travels constantly endeavour to provide our customers the best in terms of luxury, comfort, safety & technology. Thus, Mercedes-Benz buses emerged as an obvious choice for us. Now our Passengers can truly ‘Travel with the Star’ and experience unmatched comfort and luxury in their long distance travel”; commented Md.A.Afzal.
Oh! Interesting that the MD of Parveen Travels and the MD of APSRTC feel exactly the same about Mercedes buses! If you are shocked, read ahead...

...this press release was issued on September 16, 2010 (Read here):
“We at KSRTC constantly endeavour to provide our customers the best in terms of luxury, comfort, safety & technology. Thus, Mercedes-Benz buses emerged as an obvious choice for us. Now our customers can truly experience unmatched comfort and luxury in their bus travel,” said Mr. Gaurav Gupta, M.D., Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC).
Come on, Mercedes!  Fine, now, read this press release that appeared on January 18, 2011 (Read here):
"We constantly endeavour to provide our commuters with the best in terms of luxury, comfort and safety. Thus Mercedes-Benz buses emerged as an obvious choice for us. Now our customers can truly experience unmatched comfort, safety and luxury in bus travel," Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport General Manager G C Mangle said in a statement.
Its not new that Corporate press releases have standard statements in it, especially the portion that describes the details of the company that issues the release, and in some cases the profile of the customer is also included. But Mercedes has taken it too far - they've put their words into the purchaser's mouth! Shame on you Mercedes! This is not what people expect from a premium brand in India. High time you get a better public relations department!

Comments

Sunup said…
Why blame Mercedes for it? The fault lies with the PR depts of the customers for copy pasting Mercedes' PR. I am sure Mercedes doesn't proof read/copy edit their customers' PRs.
Binai K Sankar said…
@Sunup...

Why should the customer be blamed? The subject in question is the Press release issued by Mercedes, not the customer. All the quotes are from Mercedes' own press release. Merc HAS to proof read their own PRs, and not just "Find & Replace" names in the old PRs.