Key takeaways
• A press release quote isn’t simply a formality or a way to give an announcement a human voice. It has a distinct editorial purpose.
• While the body of the press release establishes the facts, the quote should add the perspective, context, or insight behind them.
• Useful quotes give journalists something they couldn’t have written without speaking to the people behind the story.
Two companies can announce remarkably similar news, provide all the necessary information, and include a quote from a spokesperson. Yet one press release can give a journalist the makings of a story while the other remains little more than an announcement. The difference is not necessarily the news itself, rather what the organisation gives the journalist to work with.
A journalist covering an industrial story can find a surprising amount of information without speaking to the company behind it. A press release can provide the facts, while a website, product brochure, or previous media coverage can fill in much of the background. What the journalist doesn’t always have immediate access to is the thinking behind the facts.
Why did the company develop the product in the first place? What customer problem prompted it? What proved difficult? What did the team learn? What does the decision say about a changing market?
Those answers have to come from the people who were there and that is what the quote is for.
The quote should add something the facts can’t
A press release has several jobs to perform, and each part works best when it does something different. The headline establishes the news, the opening explains what has happened, the body provides the detail and evidence, and the quote should help the reader understand the significance of it.
Consider a construction OEM announcing a new machine designed to reduce fuel consumption. The press release might explain its performance and the percentage reduction it delivers, with a standard quote saying:
“We are delighted to launch this innovative new machine, which will help customers reduce fuel consumption and improve efficiency.”
It’s an accurate and reasonable quote but the body of the press release already told us what the machine does, and the company’s enthusiasm is hardly a revelation. A more useful quote might explain what drove the development:
“Customers weren’t just asking us to make the machine more efficient. They wanted to reduce fuel costs and emissions without compromising the performance they rely on every day. That was the balance we had to get right.”
Now the reader knows something else: what customers were asking for and that they development team was trying to achieve. The quote adds a reason and a challenge, rather than simply repeating the announcement – and that’s the difference between a statement that accompanies the news and one that helps tell the story.
Why organisations naturally fall back on bland quotes
Organisations rarely set out to produce uninteresting quotes. The problem is that very few people are ever taught what a press release quote is supposed to achieve. When a spokesperson is asked to provide one by email, they likely think about what the company wants to communicate and how to express it professionally. They summarise the announcement, mention the benefits, and finish with something positive about customers, innovation, or the company’s commitment to the market.
It’s a perfectly sensible approach but it encourages people to think about wording before substance. And because the obvious facts have already been covered in the draft, the safest things left to say are the company is pleased, proud, or excited. These things are all true but don’t give the reader much else to work with.
A better starting point than ‘What should I say in my quote’ would be ‘What do I know about this story that isn’t obvious from the announcement?’.
That is where the interesting material tends to be.
Great quotes are usually discovered, not written
This is why a conversation with a spokesperson to get their insight can be far more useful than asking them to write a finished quote themselves. The details of how a project began or what proved difficult or surprising are harder to produce when someone is staring at a blank page and trying to sound quotable. It can also be difficult for someone so close to the work to know which parts of their own thinking will be most interesting to external audiences.
At this point, we need to call out the elephant in the room: unlike quotes from journalist interviews, press release quotes are rarely the exact words someone said. So a quote isn’t automatically less authentic or credible when a communications professional shapes it from a conversation than if the spokesperson writes it themselves. Because it’s not for communications professionals to invent insight on behalf of the spokesperson, rather to listen for the strongest observation and turn those spoken thoughts into concise written language. The finished quote may not be verbatim, but it should preserve what the spokesperson actually meant. It’s a skill to find the right words to put into the story.
Before you approve your next press release…
Hannah Kitchener
Associate Director
About the author
Hannah is an associate director in the UK, leading strategic campaigns for industrial clients across the EMEA region. A professionally qualified journalist (NCTJ), she combines specialist sectoral knowledge in construction, energy, and materials handling with a strong network of trade media contacts to secure valuable coverage. Her expertise in inter-cultural communication, honed by degrees in modern languages and translation, is key to executing campaigns that succeed across diverse European markets.
