Now as readers of this blog will know,Just In Time PR is categorically
run by an "eccentric", it is run by a fat bearded maniac (or that's what his 7-year old son calls him anyway).

What the hell were this company thinking?

[caption id="attachment_2168" align="alignnone" width="256"]

"Dad, you're a fat bearded maniac."[/caption]

Top London PR agency branded eccentric 

It went something like this.

Our hero, the CEO of Just In Time PR (oh, and
) is invited to a meeting with a company keen to raise their profile in the media.

Alone, standing tall (and perfectly ill-prepared), he rocks up at the company's office in the West End somewhere expecting a coffee, natter and scope-out.

You know, a casual first meeting to find out what these guys are after and whether a fat bearded maniac might be able to help.

Surprise surprise

But a surprise lies in store.

As he enters the room, three or four humanoids with thousand yard stares are sitting around a big table looking all stiff and funny.

It strikes the maniac that this is not a casual meeting to find out how he might help, it is in fact a....

.... I can't say it, I really can't, oh by God's tangerines.... it is in fact a...

....competitive pitch!

Did it go well?

What do you think?

Here are some snippets from said 'competitive pitch'....


: "How do we get a national newspaper to profile our business: The Sunday Times or FT, for example?"


: "OK, this may sound a bit harsh but for now you need to forget about your business. Think about the story you can give the media instead. Your story? It's the case studies you have. They're your best way in. Give the national media case studies, and you've got loads of great ones, and you'll be laughing. Make life easy for yourself, don't swim upstream by trying to bag a profile on your firm. It's an ultra longshot."


: "But we'd like them to profile us."


. "Yes, and so do 1,456,000 other businesses. Be clever, give the media a story that's not directly about you, and it will be a story directly about you. Are you with me?"


: "No."


: "OK."


: "What's different about your PR agency?"


: "We're not really a pr agency. We just happen to work in PR. PR is a fat and decadent industry that systematically shafts small businesses by charging them huge fees, tying them into hellish long contracts and serially underperforming."


: "How do we get across our key messages?"


: "You don't. Forget your key messages. Journalists aren't interested in them so the sooner you forget them, the better."

And so on and so forth.

Top London PR agency crashes and burns

In short, dear reader, our hero crashed and burned.

His honesty was too much for the company, who were later found to have branded him eccentric for speaking the truth and being honest with them.

And to have hired another agency.

Oh well, c'est la vie.