KickstarterForum.org

[picklerick]

I have read allegations of Crowd PR being a new agnecy in the community. Their name website is http://www.crowd.pr

Does anyone know if they are the same company as Crowd Co? They both have a similar name. I found this thread about their agency as well: has-anyone-hired-crowd-pr-t11437.html

[wgbriefcase]

Excellent findings on this here. I will share my experience now with the community on how I research marketing agencies who email us, as this falls under my umbrella of work on the team that I work with. If Crowd PR is emailing you from their website address www.crowd.pr then feel free to use my tactics on Crowd PR.

We just had an amazing $12,000 fund raise on kickstarter, during that time I received about 50 messages from "marketing agencies" (who were barely even real agencies to begin with) claiming the moon to you in their marketing material. Crowdco was one of the emails that I received and took a meeting with. Needless to say, this meeting did not go will with crowd and I, as I did not hire that agency after hearing what their approach was. I can't vouch for crowd pr, but I would say it's safe to put them into the same boat, as your research seems to indicate that they are infact the same marketing agency.

It would make perfect sense if these 2 were the same agency, if someone says NO to crowdco they may say yes to crowd pr. It could be a profitable stragegy for these agencies, because with 1 agency you only have so many odds to get a catch, but if you have 5 or more agencies your odds increase substantially. For that reason and that reason alone I say it is not only probable but infact highly likely that crowd pr and crowd co are the same exact agency.

A simple test would be to email both Crowd PR and the other agencies posing as a potential client for their crowd pr service. Once you have gone through the customary questions and answers, then proceed to tell them that you want to proceed with a phone call. I doubt crowd co or crowd pr would be able to resist such a hot lead. Then you can compare what they sound like over the phone to see if they are the same agency, and that right there would be absolute proof.

However, this strategy would not work if you were using the same kickstarter page which Crowd PR is seeing. You couldn't email Crowd PR with the same kickstarter page that you emailed crowd pr with. This is for obvious reasons, they would be able to see that you are the same person. So, to perform this test properly you must create 2 separate and distinct crowdfunding projects on kickstarter, and they you may email both crowd co and crowd pr from different projects respectively. Then once you proceed to the full meeting with them, you will be able to tell which one is which.

[trent.palo.smith]

Are you seriously saying that since both of their names start with Crowd that they are the same agency? If they work with crowdfunding projects their name is bound to have crowd or crowdfunding in the name.

[picklerick]

Are you seriously saying that since both of their names start with Crowd that they are the same agency? If they work with crowdfunding projects their name is bound to have crowd or crowdfunding in the name.

Both of their names have just 2 letters after the word Crowd. Crowd PR and Crowd Co. It's too much to be a coincidence, and with all the scams going on that you read about here, we need to use all the help we can get at stopping these scam marketing agencies from operating.

Seriously, how is that not enough evidence? The both must come from the same mind. No one else calls their company just Crowd and then two letters.

[mike420blazed247]

Crowdfunding campaigns need to go with whatever intel they can get. If the names of crowd pr and crowd co are similar that's enough for most of us. I even think crowdfunding pr could be lumped into this. Too similar and gives me a bad feeling in my stomach.

I can't afford to make a single bad hire with the limited budget I got. I see bad reviews of crowd co everywhere online here in the community, and I see now this about crowd pr being one in the same. I won't use them, no way!

I don't really use much marketing anyways though, its got to be cheap like 99 bucks max. I think anyone who charges more that that is a straight up SCAM. Marketing is not worth much to begin with, and I don't know what crowd pr is charging but I have a feeling based on their website it's way more than 99 bucks.

I am a firm believer in the build it they will come philosophy, organic growth, that's all you need right there. If your campaign is working then it's working and you don't need to mess around with any of these marketing agencies.

[alexissmith]

I believe that Crowd PR is improper, just look at their website everyone: https://crowd.pr. Granted we are without proof until someone does the proof posted here in regards to Crowd PR. But for now, we must rely on the wisdom of the community to make our decisions. It is hard enough to sort the real from the fake, and I trust the investigations here as enough to make an informed and wise decision.

[CharlesDarwinsCreek]

In all fairness I don't think you can claim they are the same company just because they have similar sounding names, because basically every crowdfunding agency has a similar sounding name. It all has to do with crowdfunding etc. It can be really hard to tell them apart though because even the domains are similar too! Maybe alot of them do it so they can seem like the "go to" agency for crowdfunding, but in my opinion its just not good marketing. I usually just disregard all the generic agencies its part of how I pick them. I think that a good one should have a unique name and a name you remember.

Or else you can't tell them apart. And if I hire an agency to promote my product I want them to make it stand out I don't want my product to seem just like other products out there. It's really hard to come up with a totally unique product so marketing is really important to stand out from the crowd. If an agency can't stand out from the crowd then how will they make your product stand out?

Just food for thought anyways.

[FRAUDWATCHMAN]

picklerick, although you are operating solely on suspicions due to the similar sounding names, I suspect you may be on to something. I believe it is important to operate on more that suspicion alone.

UPDATE: Crowd PR has no association with any of these companies that have Crowd in their name. I received a PM from the founder of Crowd PR and an offer of a skype chat. During this chat, I was shown clear evidence that Crowd PR is an active agency producing results frequently. I apologize for my accusations.

These 2 companies came up earlier today when I looked into Crowd PR Guru, due to the similar sounding names. Here's that post for you to see: http://www.kickstarterforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7935&p=39010#p39010

All of these companies have "crowd" in the name (including all the companies like crowd pr ninja, crowdfunding ninjas etc). I am going to dive deep into all of these to see what the connection is (if any). I do suspect there is a connection. It may be slopping naming of companies, but perhaps there is a trail that links them all together.

Crowd Co Investigation
The creation date of this domain according to whois registry is 2013. I will no post personal info here, but the name on the record matches the name of the "ceo" of this company. Judging by the long thread on this company in the forum here, it seems they are still actively pursuing clients.

A google search shows that CrowdReach (http://www.crowdreach.co) is one of the top results, indicating that they have a similar link profile. We tentatively associate this agency into the mix as well.

I was very surprised to see there is another agency going by the exact same name of Crowd Co (http://www.crowdco.agency).

Here is crowdco.agency looks like:

thecrowdco.png (238.04 KiB) Viewed 2174 times

Here is what crowdco.co looks like:

crowdco.png (225.53 KiB) Viewed 2174 times

CONCLUSION
I found Crowd PR Guru using some other agencies website, and I have now found Crowd Co with an alternative website. What this may indicate is that all of these agencies are ran by the same person (Crowd PR, Crowd Co, and Crowd PR Guru). I believe this evidence is enough to warrant further research into these companies. As mentioned previously in this thread, setting up phone calls with all of them and comparing the voice would work (assuming they don't have multiple different employees). To perform this test, we would need to use several different websites. Thanks wgbriefcase for this idea! I will try it out myself if I get some extra time, I could make a few different landing pages for this test.

[RaymondFlo]

Also, watch out for CROWD.PR:

1. I engaged Crowd PR for a publicity campaign and paid by bank deposit.

2. Crowd PR did not provide any publicity or proof that work was done

3. Crowd PR tried to take credit for work that was done not by them- work that was published before they were contracted.

4. Crowd PR promised a refund, then reneged

5. Crowd PR did not provide any deliverables stated in the contract

They don't answer the phone and take a long time to return emails. All empty promises! Stay away!

I understand the PR game well. We pay for best effort and hope for something/anything to happen. What's not ok is to:

1. Not show any proof of effort as stated in contract and not answer the phone (ever)

2. Taking credit for other people's work

3. Calling the client's product "junk" when you can't deliver

Read:
https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/crowd-pr/san-francisco-california-94105/crowd-pr-wwwcrowdprcrowd-pr-llcwilliam-henry-scammed-me-out-of-1000-san-francisco-c-1419677

[pwalk119]

Crowd.PR is definitely a scam. These guys were previously crowdpr.co and GlennRoss PR (https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/gl ... co-1328906) in addition to a ton of other names. All they do is change their name once their reputation catches up to them. They've been at this for years.

A few of the names you might be approached by, Kyle Stubbs, Kyle Staebell, William Henry and on it goes.