A story in today’s PR Week about a publishing PR firm that allegedly got fired for "overpromising on the coverage it could deliver".
Brighton-based Raft PR apparently promised Cyan Books author David Kean that he would get 17 pieces of coverage for his new book: How Not To Come Second: The Art of Winning Business Pitches. The agency apparently included the Financial Times and The Times in its list of sure fire media placements.
However, none of the coverage ever appeared.
According to Kean: "There was a litany of broken promises. One by one, the promised articles disappeared."
Its hard to believe that there are agencies out there still "guaranteeing" press coverage – especially in titles like the FT. Anyone in PR knows you can never with 100pc certainty "guarantee" that you will get a story published. Let alone that it will be relentlessly positive and "on message."
Having said that, one does wonder about the naviete of an apparently experienced business writer believing that a PR person will magically generate a glowing review of his book in the FT – and 16 other places. And on a budget that probably wouldn’t buy you a medium size latte at Starbucks. If it were that easy, we’d all be doing it.
As a final piece of advice to author Kean – perhaps he might gain at least one sale for his book from Raft PR – looks like they could do with help in winning business now they have lost this particular account.