As a food writer and journalist, I am regularly seeking conversations with marketing directors, public relations executives, brand owners, chefs and restaurateurs. My objective is simple - to include perspectives related to their products, their company and/or their company's leadership. What surprises me is how difficult it is to connect with these individuals. After all, having their name or product featured in a popular magazine adds new dimension to their already established brand/reputation. In short, it's free advertising.

Visiting the company's website is typically the best way to make contact. Unfortunately, the appropriate persons are not always identified. When good fortune strikes and they are, there are rarely any email addresses or suggestions for how to efficiently establish contact. In some cases, there are media liaisons, but again, it's not always clear how to connect. Making matters worse, many websites these days employ "contact us" forms. Unfortunately, it's rare to find someone at the company responding to these online submissions.

The good news is that, if you are at all creative when searching the web, there are other places where names and email addresses are publicly available. Finding these sources, however, is time consuming, creating situations where tight deadlines become even tighter.

When all else fails, and a direct link to a company spokesperson is not provided, there's the old school method - making phone calls, asking for email addresses (never well received), and leaving messages on voice mail. Sadly, gatekeepers are reluctant to facilitate connections and voice mailboxes are frequently full, unattended or ignored.

Lastly, even if you have a bona fide email address, your message can be lost in the shuffle, redirected as SPAM, or, just like voice messages, ignored.

Can someone please tell me why so many companies seem to be doing everything they can to avoid connecting with the outside world. I understand there are lots of junk calls, unwanted emails and lots of misleading and sometimes fraudulent offers being made. Shutting yourselves off from the world, however, means you miss out on potentially beneficial offers. This could easily include new business opportunities that could far outweigh the levels of distraction that unwanted emails and phone calls represent.

Just saying.

Jeffrey Spear has been writing about food, creating culinary brands, developing recipes and producing cookbooks for more than 40 years. If you're looking to enhance the impact of your culinary brand, or simply need someone to tell your story in ways that are visually and emotionally appealing, give Jeff a call: 904 685 2135 - or shoot him an email: jeff@studiospear.com