Recently, the increase in British equipment makers asking me to provide editorial coverage has increased. On the face of it, rather encouraging. However, below the surface I find it interesting to find out why. I’m not into self-delusion and consequently I’d be a fool to assume a range of flattering reasons as to their motivation. And so I won’t.
In a nutshell, quite a few makers feel the UK paper-based magazines don’t get sufficient editorial coverage, especially the start-ups, the temporarily small and the ‘un-anointed’ i.e. not part of the inner circle.
One common denominator being that these marginalised makers lack the public relations clout and marketing budgets of the big UK makers and/or the importer-distributors. Frankly, quite a few of these haven’t got the first clue about public relations, or how to put together a press release and so on.
But
that, in addition to having negligible advertising / marketing budgets [I]is not in my opinion sufficient reason to deny them a platform.
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So starting tonight, I will give greater editorial emphasis to
small British (and only British) makers with something relevant to offer and interesting to say to our readers and subscribers. And that means less exposure to the non-British equipment makers with substantial budgets.
I've run this past our subscriber ‘jury’ and they approve.
Any British maker appearing in the AoS Trade Impressions section is welcome to email my features editor Howard Popeck
popeckhoward@gmail.com with press releases on new product launches. Please note that neither Howard nor I have any interest in publishing editorial that denigrates competitors. That’s the strict ground rule. Thank you
Neil McCauley / editor in chief