How do you respond when one of the PR industry’s top dogs compares your product to crack? I caught up with Gorkana’s Celina Maguire yesterday to find out.

“Mark Borkowski’s blog is always a good read. While we know he is being tongue-in-cheek when he says Gorkana […] is the technological equivalent of crack […], he spotlights a serious issue.”

“In my previous life as a consumer agency director we sweated over targeted media strategies for every client campaign, and counselled clients that coverage was about quality not quantity. While there was always enormous pressure to get more, our journalist relationships were too precious to risk bombarding them with crap.

“As Mark says in his post, spam could be avoided by using technology with a bit of intelligence and a willingness to listen on both sides. Use a bit of common sense.

“Mark’s blog highlights another issue which I think is making spamming more rife – sloppy or poor PR training. Any consultant knows that playing the numbers game by sending out press releases to a cast of thousands doesn’t constitute a PR strategy, yet this approach still seems to be rife.

“Gorkana seeks to bring PR and journalist communities closer together and help both save time. Our database provides a snapshot of what journalists write on, how they like to be approached, their interests, as well as the best time to make contact. It also lists journalists who do not ever want to be contacted by PRs.

“We also invest in breakfast briefings which bring senior journalists to the PR community so they can hear first-hand what the publication will or won’t cover.

“And from a techical point of view we stop duplicate emails being sent to the same journolists and we regularly monitor over sized client lists. While we aren’t big brother so can’t pull rank if a PR decides to email the world, we are always on the look out for ways to counter rabid spammers.

“Alexander Northcott, Gorkana’s CEO, is keen on a US idea where flaks using the HARO (Help A Reporter Out) system are handed a red card if they bombard journalists with irrelevant releases. Who knows if we’ll go down that route but the point is that we’re aware of the issues and are keen to engage with the industry and find a solution.”