The Fish ‘n’ Flush, and Other Offbeat Success Stories on Home Services

Dec

The Fish ‘n’ Flush, and Other Offbeat Success Stories

posted by admin in Gutter Cleaning

Hi, there. Hope you are well. We thought you’d like some information for an interesting feature. It’s about a Kansas public-relations professional who has carved a unique niche for himself by sending the nation’s media outlets thousands of copies of news releases for “practical yet peculiar” consumer products.

He’s Todd Brabender — whose clients include the SummerSled (it works on grass) and Litecubes (the glowing ice cubes). His latest PR pitch, for the Fish ‘n Flush toilet fish tank, begins: “It’s a unique new product whose decorative appeal could turn the bathroom into the most talked about room in the house.”

Mr. Brabender, who is 41 years old and a former media person himself, is the kind of PR guy journalists hate to love — but love nevertheless. An old-fashioned press agent with newfangled powers, he blasts emails far and wide from the basement of his flagstoned mid-American home. Media elites may fume over coverups and spin, but for reporters with holiday news holes to fill, a bulletin about guppies in the toilet is cause for elation.

As Lisa Reicosky wrote in the Canton, Ohio, Repository: “Sometimes in this business we receive press releases we just can’t ignore.” That was the first sentence of her story on the Fish ‘n Flush. “The toilet fish, yeah, that caught my eye,” says Ms. Reicosky. “I’m part time. I need the PR people to give me my ideas.” The Repository (circulation 65,000) gave the Fish ‘n Flush 241 words.

At least 500 newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations — online and off — have taken this bait in a year, says Mr. Brabender. He figures it would have cost the makers of the Fish ‘n Flush a million dollars to buy that kind of advertising. As it is, except for Mr. Brabender’s $2,500-a-month fee, they haven’t spent a penny.

“It’s all Todd, generating PR for us,” says David Parrish of AquaOne Technologies Inc., in Orange County, Calif. AquaOne designs leak-control hardware and uses a clear-plastic showroom toilet tank to display it. “We were standing around one day,” Mr. Parrish recalls, “and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we had fish in it and you flushed it and the fish didn’t go down?’”

Thus the Fish ‘n Flush came to be. A Web site went up with a mail-order price of $299. Somebody who knew somebody put AquaOne in touch with Mr. Brabender. His release went out and orders came in. With no advertising and a “how did you hear about us” box on the site, AquaOne could draw a straight line from media plugs to sales.

“We see the geographic pattern,” says Mr. Parrish. “If we get orders from Bangor, we know Todd’s done something in Bangor.” Sales have reached 1,000. Now Mr. Brabender has launched a second Fish ‘n Flush campaign. The vehicle isn’t a new story, just new reporters.

“There’s such turnover in the media,” he said one workday morning, “we’ll hit people who missed it last time.” Clean-cut and clear-eyed, he sat at his computer fielding Fish ‘n Flush queries: the DIY Network, Exceptional Parent Magazine, the Muncie Star Press. Said Mr. Brabender, “We’re out on the dance floor one more time.”

It’s a crowded one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts roughly 100,000 Americans in journalism but 235,000 in public relations, most of them in big organizations. But technology has not only given rise to mobs of small shops between the coasts, it has also turned the humdrum news release into a reviled variant of spam.

Tags: Advertising, anc, business, levi, Newspapers, Orange County, Products, Professional