Story tension and relevance are key variables YPR’s new media pitching tool is meant to address.
“The Press Test” is billed as the world’s first AI-powered rating application for media pitches, and is the brainchild of communications shop, YPR, the exclusive PR-marketing global partner of the Sid Lee creative agency.
The Press Test rates pitches on a score out of 100 and generates recommendations based on an evaluation grid, which is constantly updated with insights from AI.
The tool lets PR professionals test their pitches based not only on story tension and context, but 28 other variables, explains YPR president Yanik Deschenes.
Deschenes, who’s also the global managing director, PR and influencer marketing at Sid Lee, said there’s more than 30 criteria used in the tool, and not all of those factors equally weighted. Major factors for the tool include context, where a publication is located and what could be considered timely news. The second big variable is something more nebulous, whether a story is tension-fueled.
There’s an industry tendency toward pitching stories that are overly positive or sanguine, without acknowledging open ended questions or issues that are contentious or open to debate.
“Context is first, tension is second and the third…is probably the most obvious one…value,” Deschenes says.
As Deschenes tells strategy, the tool, which provides real-time story improvement suggestions, is a boon to time-strapped communicators, and is something that he likens to a personal assistant.
He says it will probably force PR pros to go back to the client and say, this pitch needs a revision to be more contextually relevant.
Future iterations of the Press Test, Tardy says, will integrate not only timing and relevance of a story, but who might be the perfect person to tell it. This means honing in on a journalist’s specializations or area of expertise, and a publication’s audience.
