Awkward PR Photos Part of Versus NHL Promotion
It has to be a bitch to pose for all those awkward photos your PR department demands from you but that's just how it goes when you're trying (begging?) to build interest in the kick off of the NHL hockey season. So here we have Versus (formerly OLN) President, Gavin Harvey and SVP of Programming Marc Fein outside Icecalibur in New York graciously obliging the PR folk at an event that offered autographed hockey sticks and various prizes such as $10,000 in cash, tickets to the Stanley Cup or tickets to the All Star Game to anyone who could pull a stick out of the ice block.
Comments
A professional photographer will take the photos the customer suggests and then do some creative shots too. If the customers chooses the crap, the photographer just shrugs and cashes the check.
Alan Taylor is their PR company and they must really suck if this is the best they can do.
So I saw this "promotion" at Madison Square Garden before the Flyers game this week. Cool ice sculpture (not sure what it was, but it was big and frozen). I was handed a Versus bumper sticker and hockey schedule by a good looking girl. And then, I turned to my wife and said.... "cool ice sculpture, but what the hell is Versus?". Do ya think they could have mentioned they were the old OLN... or even a television network for that matter? Wouldn't they want people to know who/what they were... or were their egos so inflated by the name change they've likely been toying with internally for months that they just assumed everyone would know (in which case, why do the promotion?). Big (no, monumental) waste of money. I only hope the ice ended up in some drinks later that night.
I just want to know what happened to the Versus "sidelines" reporter that called hockey "boring" like fishing during the game Tuesday night.
Also, can someone please tell them to stop putting those stupid on screen popup advertisements on during the game? It kinda makes it hard to see the ice guys...