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playbook

Run a comms moment without the 11pm scramble

From one locked message, produce the whole comms kit — the announcement, the media pitch, the spokesperson briefing and hard-question Q&A, and pre-approved holding statements — with a legal and accuracy gate built in, so the moment is run, not survived.

advanced ~half a day
when to reach for this

A comms moment — a funding announcement, a partnership, a product milestone, or a problem you have to get ahead of — is where vague messaging gets exposed in public. Done ad hoc, it's a press release written at 11pm and a spokesperson with no answers to the obvious questions. This system runs the whole motion from one locked message: the announcement, the media pitch, the briefing doc and Q&A, and the holding statements for when it goes sideways — with a legal and accuracy gate at the front. Work it in the Claude Desktop chat; the only hard rule is that facts get verified before anything goes public.

gather this first
  • What you're announcing — the facts, the timing, any embargo — in a brief (announcement-brief.md), plus your messaging-framework.md and brand-voice.md.
  • Who needs to know and in what order (press, customers, employees, partners), and any legal or regulatory constraints on what you can say.
  • The spokesperson(s), and a clear line on what they can and cannot say or commit to.
the workflow

  1. Lock the facts and the one message

    Open the folder with your brief in Claude Desktop and ask in the chat. Before any draft, separate verified fact from hope, and decide the single message — in comms, a wrong fact isn't a typo, it's a correction or a retraction.

    you ask
    Read announcement-brief.md. State the verifiable facts, the single key message we want every reader to take away, and what we are explicitly NOT saying. Flag anything that needs legal review or a source before it can go public. Don't draft the release yet.

    what you get back A facts-and-message lock — the confirmed facts, the one message, the off-limits list — plus a flag list of everything that needs verification or legal before it's public.

    Lock this first. Every downstream artifact inherits these facts, so a wrong one here is a wrong one everywhere — in print.

  2. Draft the announcement

    Now write the release from the locked facts and your voice — factual, quotable, and free of the hype that invites a skeptical reporter to start digging.

    you ask
    Using brand-voice.md and the locked message, draft the press release: a headline, dateline, the actual news in the first sentence, a quote from [spokesperson], the supporting context, and the boilerplate. Keep it factual — no superlatives we can't defend.

    what you get back A clean, factual release built entirely on the locked facts — newsworthy without the inflation that turns a reporter into an investigator.

  3. Write the media pitch and the targeting logic

    A press release is not a pitch. Draft the angle that makes a specific journalist care, and decide exclusive-versus-broad — not a blast to every address you own.

    you ask
    Draft a short, personalized pitch angle for [a tier-1 outlet type] and for [trade press]: why this matters to their specific readers, with a one-line subject for each. Then recommend an exclusive-vs-broad strategy and the order to approach outlets.

    what you get back Tailored pitch angles and an outreach strategy — a reason each journalist should care, not a spray-and-pray send.

  4. Build the briefing doc and hard-question Q&A

    Prep the spokesperson for the room. The most valuable artifact is the Q&A that covers the questions you hope they don't ask.

    you ask
    Build the spokesperson briefing: the 3 messages to land, the bridge phrases to get back to them, and a Q&A covering the 10 hardest questions — including the uncomfortable ones — with honest, on-message answers and clear "we don't comment on X" lines where appropriate.

    what you get back A briefing the spokesperson can actually walk in with — three messages, bridges, and honest answers to the hardest questions, including the ones they'd otherwise get caught flat-footed by.

    The hard-questions Q&A is the highest-value thing here. The easy answers take care of themselves; the hard ones decide how the story reads.

  5. Pre-write the holding statements

    Write the lines for when it goes sideways now, while you're calm — not live, under a deadline, with a reporter waiting.

    you ask
    Draft holding statements for the 3 ways this could go sideways — a critical story, a factual challenge, and silence/no pickup. Each should be short, calm, and honest enough to buy time without committing to anything unverified. Note who must approve before any of them goes out.

    what you get back Ready holding statements for the likely failure modes, each with an approver named — so the calm response exists before the moment that needs it.

    The time to write the crisis line is before the crisis. Under pressure, you'll reach for the line you already wrote.

make it your own
  • Crisis-first: when you're reacting, not announcing, start at the holding statement and work backward — a calm line out now, the full comms kit once the facts are confirmed.
  • Internal-first: sequence employees and customers before press, all from the same locked message, so no one who matters hears your news from the headline.
  • Bilingual comms (MENA): produce the release and Q&A in Arabic and English, adapted rather than translated, and route both through the same legal gate — a regional story that reads native in both languages.
watch out for
  • Facts and quotes are load-bearing and public — verify every one. Confirm each name, number, title, and date, and never attribute a quote a person hasn't approved. Claude will write a confident, fictional quote if you let it; in a press release that's a retraction waiting to happen.
  • Legal and the spokesperson sign off before anything ships. Non-negotiable for anything touching finances, partners, named people, or regulated claims. The draft is fast; the sign-off is the safeguard.
  • Embargoes and timing are real. Don't let a working draft leak the date — put "confidential until [date]" on every document until it's cleared to go.
  • Claude drafts the words; it doesn't own the relationships or the judgment call. A human runs the room, works the journalist, and decides when to speak.

you'll end up with A complete comms kit from one locked message — a factual announcement, tailored media pitches, a spokesperson briefing with a hard-question Q&A, and pre-approved holding statements — so the moment is run with a plan, not survived at 11pm.

Questions people ask

Can Claude pitch journalists or send the press release for me?
No — it drafts the angle, the pitch, and the release, but you own the relationships and the send. PR runs on trust between a human and a journalist; Claude's job is to get you from blank page to a strong, personalized angle fast, so you spend your time on the relationship, not the first draft.
How does this keep me from publishing a wrong fact?
The first step is built for exactly this — it separates verified facts from assumptions, states what you're not saying, and flags everything that needs a source or legal review before going public. Combined with the non-negotiable legal and spokesperson sign-off, it puts a verification gate in front of the one place a mistake is most expensive: print.
What if we're managing a crisis, not making an announcement?
Use the crisis-first variation — start at the holding statement and work backward. Get a calm, honest line out now to buy time, then assemble the full comms kit as the facts firm up. Because the holding statements and hard-question Q&A are already part of the system, you're drafting from a structure instead of from panic.
Can it produce the comms in both Arabic and English?
Yes — the bilingual variation produces the release and Q&A in Arabic and English, adapted rather than translated so each reads native, and routes both through the same legal gate. For a MENA announcement that's the difference between a story that lands in-market and one that reads like a translation.