St Valentine offers up a good spin on an old story

SEX SELLS – especially on St Valentine’s Day, and especially for public relations companies, or so an examination of this week’s Valentine-themed stories suggests. Every good press release needs a hook and St Valentine’s Day presents an obvious opportunity for the spin doctors to get their clients’ names in print.

For this informal survey, 20 St Valentine’s Day-themed press releases were chosen, and their success in getting media traction measured across seven newspapers on the big day.

* Without doubt, the most successful Valentine’s PR stunt came from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), the animal rights group. Peta, infamous for press stunts usually involving naked women, announced a St Valentine’s Day anti-fur protest on Grafton Street in Dublin.

The images of the protesters (two men and two women) wearing red briefs and carrying strategically-placed heart-shaped cards, featured in three newspapers, including on one front page.

*A press release from a Wexford-based computer security firm warned of the dangers of exploring “romantic” links on the internet. Fake Valentine’s Day card emails – or websites purporting to offer cards to send to loved ones – could be used to download malicious code, the company warned. Even inside the “closed garden” of Facebook, an unexpected message from a member of the opposite sex should be treated with caution.

The story was popular in a couple of tabloids although neither paper mentioned the dangers of responding to advertisements and emails offering “Russian brides”, although it also featured in the original press release.

* A survey by recruitment website IrishJobs.iealso became a full-page tabloid feature. The survey took a look at attitudes to workplace romances. Like most PR-generated "survey" stories, the reliability of the figures is questionable, since they are based on answers by users of the website and its accuracy is further diluted by being based on a self-selected sample.

Despite this, surveys remain a popular PR tactic, perhaps trading on the credibility built-up by continuous political polling.

* Another poll showing Liam Neeson was the most fancied men among Irish women also fared well, earning a page lead in one broadsheet. The fact the story allowed the picture editor to run a photo of Neeson in his new movie The Greyprobably helped.

* In fifth place came a health promotion called Love your Lungs, encouraging people to exercise more. The story gained broadsheet prominence, no doubt helped by quotes from Irish Olympian, Ronnie Delaney. A similar promotion from the Irish Heart Foundation, featuring healthy eating and exercise tips, also earned prominence.

* Less successful were two surveys tying in St Valentine’s Day with the leap year tradition where women proposed marriage to men on February 29th.

There were two related “surveys”, one claiming 46 per cent of men would say yes if their partner proposed, while the other said only 10 per cent of women would consider proposing. The first managed only a small mention, with no credit given to the corporate sponsor, while the other went unmentioned.

* Press releases highlighting political issues, including a protest in favour of gay marriage and a card campaign to Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton organised by a single parents’ group struggled for coverage, as did a charity fundraiser from Bóthar and a road safety message from the Road Safety Authority (featuring a play on “speed dating” and the dangers of speeding).

* A curious “Hug a Robot” story from EU-commission sponsored research into “robot-child interaction” went unreported.