
Stay clear. These guys are terrible, should be rep...
Stay clear. These guys are terrible, should be reported to fraud squad. Surprised they are still around.....Pall Mall address? Come on guys! lol
This was the worst 'PR company' and person I have...
This was the worst 'PR company' and person I have ever dealt with in my 10 years in the music industry.
As soon as this was paid it all went horribly wrong. First, the press release came back with basic grammar mistakes; sentences that rambled on with no point or punctuation and which simply didn't make ANY SENSE.. and hadn't taken into account much of what we outlined were crucial sound bites for our artist. Ross had given this particular job to what I'm assuming is a junior in his 'team' by the name of 'Semper Azeez-Harris'. My artist being influenced by K-pop and J-pop, they thought it appropriate to just shorten and combine these distinct genres to 'oriental pop' - pretty offensive and shows how little they researched the artist they'd just taken on. When I asked why the specific reference to 'Die Antwoord' was omitted, I got this reply 'Oh, sorry, it's cos I've never heard of that act'. Really?!
After frantically and finally getting hold of Ross Dorrance whom I believed was to be solely running the campaign, he got involved with the press release and re-wrote a decent press release that was usable.
That was the last time I ever spoke to him as he NEVER returned any other phone-calls. THEY DID NOT GET US ONE SINGLE REVIEW OR ARTICLE IN ANY MUSIC BLOG OR PRINT. I kept asking for weekly press reports as the weeks went by and after a lot of emailing and un-returned phone-calls I got one or two. On investigating these I realised they had just plonked our entire press release on some 'PR sharing' site - so no actual press.
We had agreed to use the as-yet-unreleased music video and the behind-the-scenes video as PR tools to tempt music websites into featuring or interviewing our artist. That way a music website is more likely to feature your artist - if they have an 'exclusive' of some sort. Sticky Toffee then very cleverly plonk our ENTRIE press release - secret video links and all - on this public PR sharing site! My artist's fans therefore could get hold of the video without her announcing it. The videos, our precious 'exclusive PR tools' had basically been leaked through Ross Dorrance and Sticky Toffee PR via this PR sharing site. Pretty dumb.
By the 2nd or 3rd week in I realised I needed to employ someone else to get some press for our artist. I found a PR student in the USA who got us 3 or 4 really great pieces - reviews as well as actual interviews on some pretty well known music sites. She was less than 1/3 the price. Email me for the recommendation. She is fantastic and won't let you down.
Back to Ross Dorrance and his team (Semper Azeez-Harris and Alex Lowe).. Despite having a great music video (which has now garnered almost 80k views no thanks to them obviously) and a 'behind the scenes' documentary to work with they didn't achieve a single review, feature or interview neither online nor in print. The two weeks prior to the end of the campaign is when Ross Dorrance totally disappeared - none of my phone calls were answered, or returned, and they all disappeared from email. ALL THREE OF THEM. No replies - no end of campaign progress report. NOTHING.
Sticky Toffee PR is a con and we are taking them to the small claims court. Steer well clear of this joker's con-artist 'company' if you take your music career seriously and if you don't want to deal with grammatically-challenged thieves.
M. Doll
PS Sticky Toffee had what I thought was a London business address - but after some digging I realised it's just a PO Box thing so, there's no actual office in London. Smoke and mirrors all the way.
UPDATE - TO THE SCAM 'PR' THAT IS STICKY TOFFEE - 11 AUGUST 2015
Since posting this honest review of the rip off merchants, I have been contacted by 3 more artists who have had the same experience. Avoid!
I
We were promised "personal pitches" and a press re...
We were promised "personal pitches" and a press release.
They provided neither. If you want someone to send out a completely generic e-mail (I represent _______. They are interested in reviews/interviews. Here are some links to them.), these are the guys for you.
Completely unprofessional company.
Save some time and just light the money you were going to spend on fire.
Should be no stars. A complete lack of professiona...
Should be no stars. A complete lack of professionalism from start to finish. The quality of there output is staggeringly poor and I find it hard to believe they do this for a living. It is also nice to have you calls ignored as soon as they have the your cash. Avoid and spend a bit more on someone who knows the job.
The aggressive/confrontational replies from the co...
The aggressive/confrontational replies from the company owner to the genuine Reviews left here just speak for themselves, really.
[EDIT: This is gonna be fun - I can't respond, so I'll just carry on editing this comment.]
Answering the question - another confrontational one, mind you - from the "Owner", posted over a year after my review; this should tell you how much control and interest they have in the business by the way:
I used to be directly involved with Sticky Toffee PR years and years, ago so seen the absolute mess and complete fraud this company is from the inside. Don't let the socially engineered replies fool you though, majority (if not all) of those reviews are genuine and it's coming from someone who's been with them for a few weeks then just left because they didn't want their name tarnished by questionable practices to say the very least.
I hired Sticky Toffee to plug my single release to...
I hired Sticky Toffee to plug my single release to blogs and specialist radio, they did a sterling job with keeping me updated and securing coverage for the release. Only disappointment was the campaign length (from my experiences campaigns like this run for 8-10 weeks whereas my campaign only covered 6 weeks of plugging), but the results were very solid regardless. Would def recommend.
Can't reply to your response so I'll have to do it...
Can't reply to your response so I'll have to do it here. Dealt with Ross Dorrance. Was promised a UK radio pitching campaign and paid almost $1000 CAD for him to send emails to people from the BBC. Got absolutely nothing out of it and was left with no response after I asked about partial or full refund. Was basically scammed out of my savings.
I used Sticky Toffee PR to promote my debut single...
I used Sticky Toffee PR to promote my debut single.. they arranged my first ever pieces of blog / magazine coverage and also helped to secure a partnership deal with a major UK charity as part of the campaign. Will use them again 100%.
The worst PR company ever! Do not give your money ...
The worst PR company ever! Do not give your money to this company, unless you want give it to them as a kind will of gesture.
would give 0 stars if possible. Promised radio plu...
would give 0 stars if possible. Promised radio plugging to playlist managers using contacts in the industry. Speculatively emailing any and every tiny radio station on earth isn't radio plugging. Lied about coverage by the BBC as achieved through plugging. BBC said this was "absolute crap". didn't manage to acquire one single piece of online coverage for a very commercial pop track in four weeks. Ridiculous company. Verges on being a scam. Avoid at all costs.
