Create an Online Press Kit for Your Business
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA 
on 09.21.07
While Kenmore's new line of high-efficiency appliances wowed us yesterday, the company's press kit left us underwhelmed, even if it did come in a reusable hemp/cotton tote.
While we didn't have stacks of virgin printed materials to contend with, we received a CD packed with press releases and miscellaneous Word documents; a DVD with demo videos of the washer and dryer; plus another DVD, this time for the dishwasher, inexplicably shrinkwrapped together with a one-page flyer and a backing board. The first two discs came in their own plastic clamshells, while the second DVD had been thrust into a PVC pocket. It appeared that Kenmore's environmentally aligned tagline, "Doing more to use less," had been lost on its PR department.
There would have been less of a disconnect if Kenmore had simply opted to upload its press materials, including any multimedia, online. Nancy Schwartz and Company, a marketing firm, has some tips on how to do that. (Just ignore the part where it tells you to go with a virtual and a physical press kit, unless you have clients or members of the press with genuine technological limitations.) If you don't want your journalists leaving your event empty-handed, we highly recommend passing out cupcakes. ::Nancy Schwartz & Company
Difficulty level: Moderate
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Aren't you being a bit harsh? I suspect that Kenmore already has an online press kit. It's called a website. While what you got could have been packaged a bit more sympathetically (paper/cardboard sleeve instead of all that plastic), they're still way ahead of the curve. By using digital media rather than paper, which may or may not get recycled, they eliminated the energy costs of shipping heavy printed materials to Kenmore (or their PR firm), as well as the energy costs of re-shipping the press kits to the media outlets who weren't there in person.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Kenmore is making an effort not only to build a greener product but also to publicize it in a greener manner. Griping about the details only discourages this kind of behavior.