Two things about this story.
First, it illustrates how tone deaf folks can be. Jeremy Porter seems like a sensible, ambitious guy. His vision is interesting: He wants to build an environmentally-friendly motorsports park in undeveloped Dawson County. He wants customers when it opens this fall.
But he and his PR folks came up with an odd promotion: Free half day passes for violators of Georgia’s new superspeeder law. It was offensive to law-abiding motorists yet Porter had trouble understanding that. By the end of our conversation, I’m still not sure he understood it.
Second: The story construction reflects the fact that this was a deadline-crunching, last-minute production. Photographer Bill Jones and I returned from Dawson County in rush hour. Jones had about twenty-five minutes to edit it. The story consisted of three short voice tracks, a standup and a series of soundbites.
Porter told me that he and his publicist came up with the idea because they were “overdue” to issue a new press release. Sometimes, the best publicity is no publicity.
Posted by Ned Puddleman on January 28, 2010 at 12:52 pm
There is no difference between this and the government rewarding bad behavior by banks except this is a private enterprise. The “Super Speeder” law is a sham. If they were serious about safety they would take away the licenses of the “super speeders” instead of making money off them by increasing fines.
Another example is the “conserve water because of the drought” movement. When people did conserve water the municipalities lost money because lower consumption meant lower revenue. So what did they do? They rewarded conservation by raising water rates. Now people pay more to use less.
In truth what Jeremy Porter did was he got free advertising because you came up and did a story about his promotion. What’s the saying, “there is no such thing as bad publicity?”
Posted by Jim on January 28, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Had this been done as a tongue-in-cheek joke type promotion, he would have gotten even more publicity, and could have come off looking just fine.
While I personally can’t wait for the park to open, I do think he needs someone to run his PR campaign.
Posted by Sammy on January 28, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Hey 11 Alive, thanks for putting this on the news,
you just got punk’d.
Posted by Esteban on January 28, 2010 at 4:36 pm
“That’s a Horrible Analogy!”
Actually, I thought it was a great analogy…
And no, Mr. Porter doesn’t get it. But this did get him some publicity…and you know the old cliched saying…
Posted by itpdude on January 28, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Didn’t the Brewhouse have that promo? You know, on their billboard out front, something that said, “Get a dewey, free brewie.”
Posted by Sammy on January 29, 2010 at 11:44 am
Oh yea, thanks for airing this, I would not have known about it otherwise.
Stay the hell out’a my way on 400 as I go up there!
Posted by wagwar on January 29, 2010 at 8:23 pm
On a different subject, could you forward this link to Ted Hall? Thanks!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/DACHSHUND
-or-
http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/d1695/Dachshund
Posted by LBJ on January 31, 2010 at 1:44 am
Don’t know nuthin’ about speedin’, but Bill Jones is a cool guy. Ask him about his days at TV36 in the 70′s. The STL was so weak that when it rained the picture faded. And if it faded when the PTL Club was on, the callers cursed the receptionist out.