Sparkpr

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of RapidX, a brand specialist in mobile accessories.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Spark PR?

We were trying to get product awareness for some new launches that we had coming for three new products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We retained them to promote the new launches that we had coming where they’d be our face with the media. We worked to set up different launch dates for three different products, and Spark PR was to contact the media directly. Supposedly, the way the process works is you contact the media, you present them with a product, and then the media would ask for samples.

After samples get sent to the media, they would then get in touch with the PR company to ask any questions. They would then go ahead and put a review about the product after testing them. We had three launches so we set up embargo dates on all of them, meaning that the samples would get sent to the media, but no one would be talking about these products until the launch of the product. 

Once the embargo is lifted, all the media can come out with reviews and start talking about our particular products.

What is the team composition?

Initially, we had three people assigned to the project. One of them wasn’t involved at all with the project, so once they recognized that the guy wasn’t engaged with us, they replaced him with another guy they just hired. I heard from that guy two months ago that he left the company — they definitely have issues with retention.

How did you come to work with Spark PR?

We found them based on some research and rankings we found online on PR companies. We also knew of a company that they helped to get some exposure to the media in the past. We did our interview with them and other companies, and they seemed to be passionate about the project — they sold us on the idea that they could do a good job and that they had connections with the media.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $35,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February–April 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We ended up finding out they didn’t have any media connections, as they had to cold call the media the same way we would have done on our own. The only thing they had was access to emails for the media, but they didn’t have any connections that we could tell, so we had to cancel the project halfway through due to the lack of performance. We saw very little engagement with media on their side — whatever they promised didn’t come through. 

We had three product launchings with three embargo dates and we spread the products like a month in between. We started with the first launch and after lifting the embargo, we didn’t have any media coverage on that product — they made excuses. We then went to the second launch, which was something they worked on for two years so we didn’t want it to fail. They didn’t show us any sign that the second product was going to get any better performance than the first product, so we knew they’d fail with this project too.

Our main contact is a good guy overall but he was just hired with the company and didn’t have the connection with the media outlets that we wanted to go after. He was honest and tried his best. He admitted over and over again that they were failing with our PR campaign with the first product.

They sent cold emails to the media and they were hoping the media was going to jump over the product, but they needed to do more than send emails to get the media excited for our product. When we saw Spark PR failing, we started reaching out to the media and found that we were more effective than them, as we were able to secure media coverage for some of the products we were launching — while Spark PR was only able to get a couple media to cover us. Our heart and soul were in this because these were our new products, and new products could make and break a young company.

They recognized that they were failing and tried to do something about it, but I don’t think it was enough.

How did Spark PR perform from a project management standpoint?

We had weekly meetings for 45–60 minutes. We didn’t hear for them for the rest of the week after the meeting, so we didn’t know what they were doing. We had some documents they shared with us where we could see the people they were reaching out to. There was an hour or two per weekend reaching out to media, but no more than that. 

For the rest of the week, they didn’t do anything. I don’t feel they spent enough time on our project based on the contract we had with them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They gave us good feedback on some of the videos that we did, and they did the press release for us that was well written. They exchanged some ideas with us and as far as the performance went, it wasn’t worth the $35,000 I spent on them — they failed big time on media coverage.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They overpromised and underdelivered.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Get a detailed scope of work that they’ll be performing on your behalf. For example, how many hours they’re going to spend a week, what media they’re going to be going after, and what connection they have. We just went by their word that they had connections but, we didn’t verify it, so make sure you get concrete and solid proof that they have the connections. I don’t want other people to be taken for a ride the same way I was. They also never refunded any of the money.