I received this email this morning. I thought the purpose of PR was to ingratiate itself subtly? Instead, Positive Marketing is going for good old-fashioned bribery. I'd be interested to see how many references people spot before the deadline of 30 April (I suppose you could count this, but I'm not sure if it's quite what they had in mind)? The grammar and spelling is shocking as well.

“Dear writer, How would you like the chance to win a nifty and desireable Apple iPad, just for doing what you do best, writing? Pentaho, the Open Source BI leader, is celebrating its most successful launch ever, by giving away an Apple iPad to the winner of its Define Agile competition. In addition here in Europe, one lucky European journalist, will also win an iPad, delivered as soon as they become available, in our journalistic version of this celebratory giveaway. As we are limiting this competition to around 150 members of the European media only, making the odds of you bagging the hottest tech gadget around higher than many political parties have of winning the UK election next week. All you have to do enter is send proof of a mention of Pentaho’s Define Agile competition, in your publication, your blog, or even via Twitter. What could be simpler? Just send the links to your published article or blog post on or before Friday 30th April to [email protected] and we will draw a winner at random from the entrants.” Paul Maher, director, Positive Marketing