Journalists receive hundreds, if not thousands of press releases each year. Some are very well written; some not so much. Some are quite relevant to the markets we serve, in my case trucking; some not so much.
I have been following the whole Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien NBC debacle. I confess, I am a fan of Leno, although mostly his show becomes background noise as I toil around the house. So it was quite amusing to see a press release show up in my in-box yesterday with the following subject line: “Jay Leno demos his new MaxJax on jaylenosgarage.com.”
Initially, the words Jay Leno jumped out at me. Jay Leno has a product dedicated to the trucking market, I thought. Interesting. Then, the thought quickly went to, what is a MaxJax? So I opened the release to learn more, just what any good pr person would want.
Turns out the MaxJax is a vehicle lifting system from Dannmar and the company was promoting the fact that Leno, who owns hundreds of classic automobiles, uses the product in his own garage. He displayed that fact on his web site, www.jaylenosgarage.com, and even included a video, which you can watch here.
The MaxJax, it turns out, is a mid-rise two post portable and stowable vehicle lift with ceiling clearance of just eight feet. The release goes on to list other famous owners of the product: former NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace, NASCAR driver Austin Dillon, reality TV stars Ryan Friedlinghaus and Duane Mayer, as well as famed fabricator Eddie Paul.
With a lifting capacity of just 6,000 lbs., trucking is not the right fit for the MaxJax. But Jay Leno is. And after all, isn’t one of the functions of a good pr representative’s job to get their product mentioned by the press? Consider it done.