Maybe you read/saw/heard the buzz yesterday about QTrax, the revolutionary music download service offering free legal music, funded by adverts with every track.
Twitterwent crazy. My office almost got excited. And how had they done it? They realised that Cannes, in the midst of one of the regular media love-ins, was the place to hit all the journos and influencers that matter in their field.
So, blanket coverage achieved, buzz created…the sky was the limit, and the PR had massively over-delivered on ROI.
But just hours later it began to unravel. Actually, those music label majors hadn’tsigned up. So those 20m+ tracks we could listen to? Erm, let’s try 20k tracks, if that. Did the website work? No, it was off-line when I tried to access. Those glowing endorsements on their literature? Out-of-date and context apparently.
Result this morning? Acres of negative coverage, and a reputation [possibly] irrevocably damaged.
Moral? Align product with PR first. Second, just like shares, reputations can go down, as well as up.