Ethos, Pathos and Logos Redux

Michael Gartenberg | January 02, 2008, 10:45 AM

I've talked in the past about the importance of vendors to understand Ethos, Pathos and Logos when they present to analysts and discussed the issues of analyst relations. With the approach of CES and Macworld, I get a higher than usual number of briefing requests. Some folks are great at this and others are just a disaster.

It's important to understand that many vendors actually need to be prepared to tell three different stories as well as deal with three very different types of people who, in the end, have very different goals.

I've mentioned in the past that I'm an analyst, a blogger and a journalist. When I write a syndicated research report, it's a very different process than writing a blog post, which in turn is very different than writing a column for Computerworld. I won't even begin to get into the differences among analysts and analyst firms (and how they need to be approached) or the difference between industry and financial analysts.

The big disconnect is that analyst relations is not public relations, even though it's often handed off to be done by the same folks who don't differ in their approach. 

As I've said in the past, analysts are not here to report a story or be first with some "scoop". We're here to make sure we get it right and to make sure can put whatever is happening in the world into the context of other things that are happening. There is a difference and the best PR and AR folks know and understand that.