Complaint Review: REED TRENCHER - Mill Valley California

I formed a new company in March 2012 and launched our first product line in July of 2012. We have an amazing natural solution reducing aquarium maintenance to its bare minimum. Using our solution prevents water change for one year. Anyone owing an aquarium has to change 20~25% water every week or two. Huge time, money and water saving, a valuable proposition that no other product has achieved.

I was introduced to Reed Trencher, Chairman and CEO of Primetime Publicity and Media Consulting Corporation in September 2012. I felt it was too early to hire a PR/ Media firm but Mr. Trencher convinced us otherwise. He said this was the perfect time to do this. He was looking at our product from 30+ years of experience, claiming to have been the successful factor in bringing brands like Brookstone Co., Tempur-Pedic and Sharper Image from obscure brands and less than a million dollars in sales to highly visible brand names and sales in the 8/9 digits.

The ticket to get him on board was not prohibitive. He promised that within 3 months, we’ll be in 7 to 9 publications from newspapers to magazines. To use his own words “I hope that you'll discover that there's no one better than I am at orchestrating media placements and developing the right strategic moves to make, as we, together, conspire to create a highly regarded brand name.

It's all about having the right contacts while being a fertile soil in which both story and biz dev ideas can grow and quickly multiply.”

First flag came when Mr. Trencher said he needed me to purchase the Bacon media directory. Would that be something any media professional should have in his office? I reluctantly paid for it.

He claimed to have owned aquariums, and to be particularly sensitive to what we were trying to accomplish because his late mother was a marine biologist. I can’t recall how many times I had to describe our product’s benefits, the industry and most importantly our target audience. Everything seemed to enter one ear and exit through the other without having made one difference.

Rewriting his “pitch to journalists” and fact sheet have been excruciating. English is not my native language, but what I had to read would have driven a 8^th grade teacher on the verge of depression.

Three months later and more excuses to fill Lake Superior, there was still not a shred of a story about us in a national, regional or even local media. The election (as if no one saw this one coming), the shrinking staff in media outlets, all his friends had moved (well, he said he was still pulling his magic a few months ago) got the best of my patience.

It appeared clearly that Mr. Reed Trencher was not running a media corporation but a one-man op with absolutely no contact in the media whatsoever. This man lied to us from the day we met until the day I finally gave up on trying to get at the very least the Bacon media guide back. He claimed to have lost it!

Mr. Trencher might have been efficient at what he was doing 20 years ago, but now, he is nowhere close to a professional. His lack of ethic and his greed will drive him to promise you the moon.