Reed Trencher started a public relations firm in San
Francisco in July of 1974. By 1980, San Francisco
Magazine, in its June issue, had dubbed him "publicist
extraordinaire." Often hailed as one of the brightest,
most original thinkers in business today, Trencher is
widely-known throughout the media and communications industry
for having instituted "Pay-for-Performance" in his own field.
Numerous articles on his controversial
approach to publicity have appeared in such national media as
Columbia Journalism Review, INC., Marketer, and Continental
Profiles. In its April 20, 1987 issue, Newsweek, devoted a
full-page story solely to Trencher's novel idea.
In 1979, Trencher concluded that only
unsolicited person-to-person 'word-of-mouth' endorsements
influence people more than news media attention. "Aside from
that, media exposure is the gold standard of
credibility to the vast majority of for-profit companies. It's
what usually helps companies the most. A great P.R.
firm knows this and can 'deliver' it." he said. Soon after,
Trencher came up with the industry's first unit-pricing
list by which a P.R. firm could be remunerated for its
achievement, placement by placement, of media exposure for
a client. The list took into account 400 American media outlets.
Coupling this innovation with a
belief that
it is distinguished former-journalists who can best act
as media
placement specialists, Trencher established Primetime
Publicity
and Media Consulting in l98l, on the exciting premise
that clients
would pay for publicity only after his firm had
placed
it. That he continues to pace the field of public
relations is
further evidenced in 2004, by his having embedded his
'accountability'
approach into a variety of reputation management
services never
before offered by any other firm. The effectiveness of
each of
them is predicated on journalistic acumen.
The real winners, of course, are many of
the companies, new and mature, large and small,
that become Primetime clients. Many have seen that fair, balanced
media coverage in magazines, newspapers and on
prestigious broadcast programs -- particularly in this era of
radically shifting mass-access to information --
is cost-effective and, most of all, of utmost strategic value.
Trencher's message of principled
agency/client responsibility reaches across the service
industry to both sides of the checkbook, as customers, managers
and stockholders echo the call for real accountability
to permeate all areas of commercial enterprise.
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