View all news articles >>

PR News - October 2, 2000
Joel Davis
(c) 2000 Phillips Business Information, Inc.

Publicity trick a real treat

PR types are "innovative" or "arrogant," "clueless" or "responsive," according to players of Whack-a-Flack, an Internet game set up by e-tractions, Inc., a Bedford, Mass., developer of entertainment tools for one-on-one Web marketing. And the large, multinational agencies - Brodeur Porter Novelli, Edelman, and Hill & Knowlton, to name a few - generally top the whack list.

Whack-a-Flack debuted about six weeks ago in a viral marketing campaign. The object of the game is to hit different PR people with paper airplanes as they pop up from behind cubicle walls. Players were asked to choose from a list of 20 prominent tech PR firms that most deserved to be assaulted, and to pick a reason for the whack attacks. Since its introduction, there have been more than 18,000 visits to the site (http://www.whackaflack.com).

e-tractions CEO Michael Gauthier insists the game was not created to slam PR firms. Instead, it grew out of an observation during a brainstorming session that tech journalists spend most of their time grumbling about PR people.

PRN never grumbles about PR professionals. We are getting better at throwing airplanes at Ginny Tonnick and Ron Amok, but we only pick positive adjectives to describe our favorite agencies.