Audi kills the press release

With my part time motoring journalist hat on it was with sadness that I read the letter from Audi’s press office this week about the proposed replacement of their printed press packs with email.

Frankly, I’ve marvelled for years that they could still afford to send out all those sumptuous glossy photos on a weekly basis but at the same time I congratulated them for not doing a Mercedes and lazily referring you to a website where you are expected to mine for the information.

And the direct mail approach worked, I used a release only last month for a Christmas round up piece and there’s no denying you felt good towards Audi for investing in you. On the flip side, it’s going to be far more convenient to receive information by email, we’ll no doubt get videos as well as jpegs and the information will be more frequent and relevant – assuming they get their email marketing right.

Audi’s line is that it’s a move to offer optimum efficiency to the UK motoring press, though it doesn’t take a genius to see that the impetus was financial. I fear we may be seeing the last of its kind but whilst the hard copy press release is still an option (by request) I’ll cling on.