This post has been surprisingly hard to write. I did not know what to call this post. “queen of shameless self-promotion needs dinner” was one thought. Re-titling the e-mail I am about to share “feed me” was another. “give her some figgy pudding…puleeaazze” almost made it.
But then I just cringed because it occurred to me that although I have little respect for a certain Main Line area fauxblicist , I thought maybe she just didn’t know how she sounded.
Then I woke up.
This one is no stranger to the “I, me, my” of it all. And well, not to be mean, but if you read her website or her Facebook page for her business, there is never much in the way of original thought, and when there is…well…you end up with the “feed my family for Christmas Eve and we’ll all dress up as the Von Trapp Family Singers courtesy of ABC boutique, DEF make-up, Dr. GHI Botox, and whammo always free for me photography.”
What am I speaking about? Quite frankly the strangest pitch I have ever seen anyone send out. It is worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit it is so awful. And I can’t take credit for ferreting this all out, I was sent it via a friend who knows Philadelphia Magazine writer Victor Fiorillo.
Oh MY, aren’t you just embarrassed for Sarah Lockard? And wow talk about giving legitimate, hard-working publicists a bad name.
How is it innovative to feed her entire family for free on Christmas Eve? And who goes out to dinner on Christmas Eve anyway that is Catholic or Christian? Unless your family member owns a restaurant? Don’t you gather with family and friends on Christmas Eve or go to church or both?
How is this exciting? And who exactly is this exciting for precisely? Maybe for her because she is in essence asking for a free meal before services are provided. Sheesh I will Tweet and Instagram just because I like a restaurant. Heck we all do that these days. And Paris Hilton she ain’t…..but she does need a refresher course from Emily Post. Hey, here’s an *idea* – she can contact EmilyPost.com and ask if her whole family can get a refresher course on basic etiquette and Sarah will tweet about it, give 5 Instagram photos and so on and so forth?
Sarah Lockard fashions herself to be a publisher, publicist, and social media wizard. She has had a website called AroundMainLine. I guess people use it, I never find much that I didn’t see someplace else and most of the content contains photos of Ms. Lockard herself. So maybe she is her own best client? Wonder what she charges herself?
I will tell you straight up I am not a fan. People who try to climb so desperately and so obviously make me cringe, and well? To me this is trying too hard to belong. But then again this is quintessential Main Line of today, and why I don’t miss it.
She likes to say she started Main Line Restaurant Week, which truthfully has less and less to do with the Main Line every year…the thing is this, it was another Sarah who is an actual publicist who did the original Main Line Restaurant Week years and years ago. I have never understood why she can’t acknowledge that.
I have provided publicity for people as a publicist, and it is in essence what both of my parents did their entire professional career lives. I also have personal friends who are publicists. So I know how it is done.
This is not it.
I get that Sarah Lockard obviously wants to feel good about herself. As women we all do. But to put out an e-mail like this in my humble opinion is akin to social / professional suicide. Except for the fact that the Main Line of today is not your mama’s Main Line. And this one does this unfortunately all of the time and never has the good graces to be the least bit embarrassed.
So break out the figgy pudding y’all, Sarah wants you to buy her family Christmas Eve dinner. God bless us every one, yo’.
Here’s How to Get Your Restaurant Publicity On AroundMainLine.com, Or: How Bad PR People Ruin the PR Industry
By Victor Fiorillo | December 10, 2013 at 4:54 pm
Restaurants of Philadelphia, sometimes just being a great restaurant isn’t enough to get publicity for your restaurant. In some cases, you need to buy a publisher and her whole family dinner on Christmas Eve.