• by July 21, 2000

This morning, ChannelSeven ran a story about the importance of maintaining well-assembled and current company press kits online. The same goes for media kits, as I'm sure you'll agree.

How many times have you tried to locate a site's media kit online only to give up after an hour of searching through the pages, pick up the phone and spend the next two days playing phone tag with a rep? And when you finally do get the media kit, it's usually tons of hype and little info. This is especially true of ad networks - some will claim to rep thousands of sites, but can you get the actual list?

Personally, if I read the phrase "leading provider of next- generation, unique advertising solutions" one more time, I'll scream! "Solutions?" What exactly is that? What is it that you actually DO?

My own reporter-driven pet peeves aside, I'm proposing the following:

Every website should make their media kit available online, with a link to it right from the homepage. I find the words "media kit" for a hyperlink work exceptionally well.

Every media kit should include basic company information in PLAIN ENGLISH - none of the boilerplate "we're the hottest thing around and can offer you the most targeted audience around, but we can't tell you how or why" stuff, please. Also: CURRENT rates, unique monthly visitors, and all the other numbers advertisers ALWAYS ask for.

And above all else, a place to send RFPs - an advertising contact's name, email address, phone and fax numbers. Elemental? Yes. Habitually omitted? More often than not.

Am I asking too much?