Dubai Foodie Fashionistas Unite!

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I got an email this week from somebody announcing they were a 'Dubai-based foodie fashionista' and letting me know they were starting a blog if I needed any publicity.

I get a lot of random emails from people wanting publicity because I'm on a list operated by a company called Cision, which offers a subscription based service to PR people. Cision is quite a powerful tool, but often lazily used by PRs, who just blanket mail everyone they can find, rather than using Cision's segmentation tools. So, although I'm on Cision as a 'blogger', I'll frequently get 'Dear Editor' emails or invitations to 'cover' someone's event, job move or new self-adjusting dimplex.

Actually, I also often get 'Dear,' emails. And now and then, in moments of solid gold, 'Dear blogger'.

What, dear flak?

I also get emails hoping I've had a lovely weekend from people I don't know who don't seem to think that strangers hoping you've had a good weekend - or are having a great day - sound perhaps just the teeniest, tiniest tad bit insincere.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with this email thing. It's occasionally quite interesting. I get emails telling me about new wireless routers, carwashing 'solutions', touristic events in Abu Dhabi and hotel launches. I get a large number of press releases written by people who are clearly witless, drooling clowns on behalf of clients who are wasting good money with bad marketing, poor targeting and communications that shouldn't be tolerated beyond primary school. I am often amused by these, in the dark way that the Darwin Awards are amusing, or someone dying horribly while using a selfie stick. I know, I know. You couldn't make it up, could you?

But a Dubai foodie fashionista trolling me for freebies (which is what 'foodie fashionista' is secret code for) is a new departure. The very idea of a bloated Mr Creosote in a rose-patterned tea dress is enjoyment enough. Not, you understand, that my idea of fashion is a rose-patterned tea dress. My concept of fashion, as Sarah would gleefully inform you, is far, far worse than that.

That someone would self-identify as a Dubai-based foodie fashionista is glorious. What do you do, then, Bill? Oh, I'm a welder. Why, what do you get up to? Oh, I'm a Dubai-based foodie fashionista. Oh, right. Nice, if you can get the work...

Anyway, I deleted the email.

Press Release: The Fear Returns

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The #UAEPR hashtag on Twitter was started by @theregos back in the days of yore, as he and I were swapping tales of woe from our experiences at the hands of the UAE's public relations practitioners. I had forgotten and thought it was me, @mrtompaye or @dxbmaven wot done the dirty deed first - but it would appear not.

#UAEPR is amusing; a sustained howl of pain from various media and bloggy types sharing the abuse we are all subjected to by the sort of drooling idiots who think sending breathless blipverts about car washing 'solutions' to people with absolutely no interest in car washing is a beezer scheme. That businesses are actually paying these clots to irritate an audience that buys its ink by the barrel is a source of never ending, childish wonderment to me.

It is from this stable that this week's highly popular press release about Bapsy's Brilliant Books came, a communication that ticks every box in the multi-layered mixed metaphor that is the Mille-Feuille Of Wrong.

And it is from this - gloriously Augean - stable also we are gifted with the following, sent to me on Monday of last week.

Dear Alexander,

I hope you are having a lovely week.   

It is with great excitement that we share the news of Coca-Cola Egypt's  Ramadan Charity Campaign #ثانية_تفرق, set to dominate social media platforms in Egypt and beyond.

This festive season Coca Cola is giving back to the Egyptian community by replacing their always hotly-anticipated television ads with a unique campaign against prejudice rolling out exclusively on digital media. Their TV ad budget is instead being poured into their  project of developing 100 villages. In recent days they have also galvanised Egypt's digital population, pledging that for every post featuring a finger raised against prejudice (symbolising one extra second) they will donate one additional pound to their project.
Kindly find below the press release for your reference. Please do let me know if you need imagery or any additional information as it would be a pleasure to assist.   I look forward to hearing your thoughts!   

Warm regards,  

Kristina

Fascinating, indeed. A press release - naturally packed with highly assertive language - that begs more questions than it answers. The 'press release below' was just an Arabic version of the above text and some YouTube links to Arabic language videos about people with disabilities drinking brown stuff. I naturally shared my thoughts with Kristina in the form of some questions about Coca Cola Egypt which her email to me raised:

1) How will the campaign dominate social media platforms in Egypt and beyond? What sort of metrics are you using for this goal and what will success look like for you? 

2) How are Coca Cola's TV ads hotly anticipated? Do you have any statistics regarding consumer reaction to the ads and how anticipated they are? 

3) What is Coca Cola's Ramadan TV ad budget for 2015? Is this the same as 2014? Can you confirm this is all being spent on social good programmes this year? 

4) I'm not aware of Coca Cola's programme to develop 100 villages? When did it launch? With what goals? What form has it taken in the past? What has it achieved so far? What villages, in which regions of Egypt, are being assisted? 

5) What will Coca Cola be doing for these villages in 2015? 

6) How has Egypt's social media population been galvanised? Do you have figures of posts, engagement, reach to substantiate that? 

7) The raised finger in a selfie signifies one extra second of what? 

8) A finger raised against prejudice in Egypt is interesting. Which prejudice in particular, or all prejudice? Can you confirm that Coca Cola's definition of prejudice includes prejudice against gay and Lesbian people? 

9) What is Coca Cola's existing donation for Ramadan 2015? Is there a cap on how much it is willing to donate as part of this campaign? What is the maximum Coca Cola will donate? 

10) How does Coca Cola think this campaign will benefit its brand image as a purveyor of soft drinks?

It's nearly a week now and I haven't heard back from her. I'm sure the team has been beavering away gathering proof points that will back up the bold assertions in her email. Or perhaps I got caught in her spam filter, which will be doubtless more efficient than mine - which appears to have ceased to work for some reason.

Mind you, it's possible she wasn't being sincere when she said she was looking forward to hearing my thoughts. But I can't quite believe that.

It was clearly such a sincere email representing such a sincere campaign...

Salam, Bloggers! The Arabian Nights Village in Abu Dhabi wants you!

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It's one of the most witless emails I've received in a long time, from a company calling itself 'Smart Comms' and a bloke who's given himself the job title 'Digital Scientist'. You can tell we're in trouble already, can't you?

David, the digital scientist, wants to offer all UAE bloggers the chance to qualify for a free-of-charge stay at the 'Arabian Nights Village', apparently a one of a kind cultural experience in Abu Dhabi. That's it, that's all the detail in the email. All bloggers have to do to 'qualify' is send David a list of their social media followers, specifically:

1) Unique Monthly Visitors to your Blog:
2) Twitter followers:
3) Instagram followers:
4) Facebook fans:
5) Other Social media footprint?

Based on these numbers, presumably - rather than any qualitative or content based analysis, David will work his 'digital science' and select bloggers to join in the 'exciting activities' at Arabian Nights Village.

Presumably David will find this post one day as he trawls the UAE's blogs to find new victims for his 'digital science'. So here's a message for him that is infinitely more satisfying than replying to his email.

Look, David. I don't want to go to 'Arabian Nights Village'. I don't know what it is, what it does, what it's like or even who's behind it. I'm not particularly interested, but you've hardly piqued any shred of residual interest I might have had. I certainly don't want to "take a first-class Desert Safari and stay in houses inspired by Emirati lifestyles from throughout the ages" - not that I'm uninterested in Emirati culture, far from it. But from the tone of your mail, I have the nasty feeling that whatever 'experience' you're offering consists of being hauled around with a ring through my nose and being forced to endure a number of humiliating encounters with something lacklustre before being beasted into posting about it in awed and gushing prose that you would, ideally, dictate. I could be wrong, but that's a chance I'm taking.

I have very little interest indeed in responding to your invitation to validate myself to you by proving I have sufficient followers, friends or other online contacts to jump over your arbitrary bar. Why on earth you thought spamming every blogger/social contact you could scrape from the web with a mail like this would get you any result other than opprobrium, I don't know. I mean, you didn't even take the trouble to address me by name or contact me in any way prior to this. What on earth did you think you were doing? What in the name of all that's chocolate flavoured did you think the 'social' is there in 'social media' for?

Maybe you'll get lucky - maybe there's some rube out there who'll trade his/her twenty followers for a night out with you and your village. But, for the record, David, it's a 'no thanks' from me. Best of luck with other 'bloggers'...