When you do a lot of Chinese press events you get used to a certain amount of formula. The corsages for spokespeople, because otherwise the cameras might not know who to focus on. The incredibly literal backdrop inscription translated into ungrammatical English: Phlatco Hubei R&D Lab Constructing Start Announcing Ceremony. The brief, empty speeches: "This is an exciting moment for all of us." And, of course, the confetti.

The confetti is really part of a larger formulaic device: the launch photo-opp moment. For all our desire to break out of formula we still often get stuck with it, and staged photo-opp moments are something that we get asked for a lot. "Design us some king of catchy 'big moment' for the cameras." I can understand why clients make the request. Some events cry for a little visual augmentation. Few things cause total shutdown of the human brain stem faster than a photograph of a row of gray men in suits seated in front of a back board with an ungrammatical proclamation on it. Perhaps a photograph of two gray men in suits shaking hands come close. If I was a photo editor I would use such photos to commit suicide by inflicting papercuts on my own wrists rather than publish them. Assuming, of course, photos were still printed.

 As someone who's main talent is writing and playing with words and messaging, and not, say, dreaming up zany video stunts, I always find requests for photo opp moments excruciatingly painful. I'd just as soon my clients spent their money on something else, like doing something actually newsworthy. Or paying me for my time so I can rewrite the English wording on their backdrop.

Fortunately there is a range of companies to whom we subcontract the dreaming up of such things. That explains the staggeringly original lineup of gold-plated groundbreaking shovels, plasma-balls, enormous knife switches and confetti cannons that I have been exposed to in the past two and a half years. Of these gimmicks, the confetti cannon may be my least favorite.

First, they're often loud. You have to warn your front-row VIPs when there are confetti cannons lest the photo opp be of a harried, confetti-covered PR man giving CPR to a geriatric spokesperson who's just had a massive cardiac. Second, they splatter confetti all over your spokespeople so that when photos are actually taken they all look they have giant, metallic dandruff. Third, while confetti cannons added a great deal to the early David Letterman shows (who can forget when he wheeled his confetti cannon down to the entrance to the Today Show studio and blasted the security guards after they refused to let him visit Jane Pauley?), they add very little to the news value of corporate PR events.

Honestly, I can't think when the confetti has ever made the difference. My drab, news-lite event isn't suddenly page one material because of the confetti. It's not like business leaders around the world are going to slap open their Wall Street Journals and be greeted by the banner headline:

They had confetti!
Daring showmanship propels Phlatco to new heights, stock price triples, PR geniuses hailed

The ironic thing is that it tends to infest situations when it isn't even necessary. Imagethief spent the last week working on a nicely newsworthy and chewy announcement. An announcement that stood on its own and was rich with implications for Chinese industry. An announcement for which one of our main problems was keeping from getting into the press too early.

And yet we still somehow managed to have confetti. Go figure. I'm still picking the stuff out of my clothes.

Previous, similar rant about staged photo-opps here. Sorry if I'm repeating myself.