Send me a form letter that reads like this. I’ve anonymized it to respect the emailer’s privacy, but it comes from a giant entertainment corporation. My edits are in bold:
Dear Webmaster,
Got a burning desire for a great movie this summer? Balding Star A, Aging Starlet B, and Washed-Up Drug-Addled Ingenue C have the answer for you, as they star in Sad, Late Summer Release.
I’m with Big Company marketing department. As you may already know, the aforementioned movie will be released into theaters soon, and I think your site is a perfect place to spread word about this movie.
I’d like to offer you and your site a chance to help spread the word about this upcoming movie, and if you’re interested in helping out with promotions, I can provide you with exclusive pictures, banners, and even prizes if you’re willing to host a contest! To participate, all you have to do is reply to this email and I will send you information about the campaign, movie stills, links to the official site, and other items available only to participating websites, like yours.
Working with Big Company is both fun and rewarding for you and your visitors, and I’d love to work with you to promote this exciting summer film. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you.
They start off so promisingly with that ‘Dear Webmaster’. Man, that feels friendly and authentic, doesn’t it? And the promise of ‘helping out with promotions’? Golly, that sounds great! And what’s in it for me? ‘Pictures, banners, and even prizes’? Fantastic. Where do I sign up?
What’s the right way to do this sort of thing? Here’s 5 quick, random ideas:
- Have the stars, directors, designers and so forth keep one or more video blogs, and send me a link to that.
- Have some of the people involved record brief (like, 30 second), personalized messages that I can play on my website. See also Snakes on a Plane. Have them make 50 of them for the 50 most popular websites you’re targeting.
- Offer me something that has real value. Tickets to the preview? Tickets to other movies? Outgoing links from your popular website? Money?
- Run a contest on your site to remix a trailer using 40 or 50 short clips. Tell me about the contest, invite me to participate, and let me share the trailers I like.
- If the media tour is coming to my town, let me do a 5-minute interview with one of the filmmakers.
Here’s a bonus tip: talk to me like we’re both human beings.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Do you get pitches from publishers? I’m always getting requests to write up books. Sometimes, I’ll do it if the book sounds interesting, but some books sound like they’d be a tough read (ie. boring) for someone with a niche PhD!
I get some–maybe one a month. I accept a few, but most of them seem pretty random and have little to do with my interests. I was recently pitched to review a biography of a 16th century Portuguese nun. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t my thing.
At least you get fiction. I always get pitched business books, some of which are really, really weird. Fiction I could pawn off on friends afterwards!
“Dear Webmaster,”?!?!?!? I think I just threw up in my mouth.
At least the pitches I get – while they’re obviously form email letters – have “Chris” as the salutation. I don’t ask much, but I do ask for basic MailMerge skills.
Seriously, though, your ideas about the production blogs and other things are similar to what I’ve been advocating for a long time. Nice to see I’m not alone. Studios – and other companies – need to give us better ways to get their information if they want to be taken seriously. This kind of garbage just isn’t going to cut it.
Dear Webmaster,
As a PR Guy, I can tell you first-hand that talking to people like they’re human beings is extremely time consuming for a low-level drone who was told “We need online buzz” by a VP who has no idea what this means.
It is only through reading posts like these that they will understand how this online PR thing works.