PR Firm, Former Client Embroiled in Spat

Unfortunately, in public relations and other professional-service environments, the client/advisor relationship doesn't always go smoothly. Most often, this results in a calm parting of ways, but occasionally things can get bitter and sometimes even go public. With the widespread proliferation of social media, going public is happening quicker than ever.

The battle started on Aug. 20 when Rafat Ali, the leader of ContentNext Media, a company that operates several Web sites providing news about the world of digital media, announced on The Business Insider that he was firing his agency, Brainerd Communications following a pitch the agency sent out with the aim of getting him interviewed as a source on the future of music startups.

A high-level Brainerd official took issue with the coverage on the site, which the agency called a "mischaracterization." Brainerd was thought to be referring to a characterization issued by Ali himself -- and not The Business Insider -- which referred to them as "morons."

Obviously it's impossible for anyone but the two parties who signed the contractual agreement governing Brainerd's representation to be able to say much with certainty about what was promised, how the relationship was supposed to work and other key elements that go into making a PR firm's counsel worthwhile.

However, the typical firestorm that each of these complaints unleashes across the Web damages not only the firm itself but the industry as a whole, pointing again to the need for a cohesive industry voice to respond. Yes, Brainerd probably should have let the issue go and allowed the public at large to decide who was right in the spat, but the fact that there were many posting comments following the issue questioning the value of PR show the industry has a lot of work to do in terms of explaining what PR is and its value.

In all honesty, the reason there's so much anger when these relationships go south is because an impossible situation was set up from the beginning. This could be because there wasn't a good personality fit between the PR firm and its client, because the client expected more than was in any way realistic and the firm didn't temper those expectations or a whole host of other reasons.

While many in the PR industry probably regard the "dot-com boom" as a shining moment, at least in terms of industry revenue, it was also a time when lots of agencies took companies with business models that would never work and that had no real innovation to speak of and tried to turn that situation into something newsworthy through some form of "spin." Fact is, most any reputable journalist decides in under a minute whether something is worthy and most of the companies that were brief stars in that era didn't qualify. Had they qualified, they would have gone on to be unparalleled successes and obviously that didn't happen.

In closing, it's important to keep in mind that there will always be unhappy clients, even when an undisputably good job is done. Focusing on clients that are a fit and explaining in realistic terms what can be expected is the best anecdote to keep this kind of venomous situation at bay.