Andrew Blum
Andrew Blum

So you or your agency are looking for new business or a potential piece of business finds you. Great. But what if it is an industry or a person whose personal views or their businesses go against what you or your agency believe in?

I am sure at some time, many of us in the PR business have had to work for a client who is either borderline questionable, or even toxic, or you don’t believe in what they do or say. But PR is a business. Turning away too many clients is not good.

There are three ways this issue can come up:

First, you work for a company’s PR department, and they have a customer or client you don’t approve of. Second, you work for an agency, or you are the head of an agency and there is a belief that a prospective client isn’t right for your agency or enough employees don’t like what the client stands for. And finally, you run your own agency or consultancy, and you don’t like who the prospective client is but at the same time, you need to run a business.

What do you do and how do you handle each of these?

Well, the odds are that if you do PR for a company or an agency, if you don’t like their customers or clients, you still will need to do PR on work relating to them. If the boss says so, you do it.

When I directed PR in-house for a company and for agencies on a consulting basis, I couldn’t say well, no, I don’t like that client, so I don’t want to do any PR for them. But if you are the head of an agency or in a leadership position you might have a say in a decision to turn down or accept a particular client.

As the PR Director at the above company, I was looking to hire an outside agency for a high-profile, controversial client to deal with a torrent of media and negative press. I reached out to a major agency I knew and they turned it down – he was too toxic. I understood; there were already hundreds of stories about the client – 99.99% negative.

On the flip side, that client and some other high-profile clients of the company I worked for actually turned out to be challenging and fascinating PR projects. Because I did not agree with what they stood for, I might have turned them down as clients if this was during my time as an outside consultant.

As a PR consultant, it’s easier to turn down a prospective client because it is only me making decisions. I have turned down several but again, I still need to run a business.

There were a couple of high-profile “me too” men – one of them who was all over the U.S. and international media – who I turned down. They were too vile for me, and I didn’t want them spilling over into my own reputation.

The other side of the coin is when you get to work with clients you agree with personally. Since late 2023, I directed PR for four books each about a different slice of the Trump era – one was about the four indictments of Trump, one was about the 2020 fake electors scheme, another was about the lack of GOP courage in standing up to Trump, and the last was by an anti-Trump podcaster.

You can’t always be so lucky in having PR clients who believe as you do.

So, in deciding if you should work for a questionable client ask yourself: Is the client a fit for your agency? Will doing PR for them help or hurt your own PR reputation? Can you live with yourself if you work for them? Are they paying enough to make it worthwhile?

Tough choices.

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Andrew Blum is a PR consultant and media trainer and principal of AJB Communications. He directed PR for former New York Governor Pataki from 2007 to 2013, and directed crisis PR in the criminal cases of former U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards and DC lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He also has directed PR for several books about the 2020 and 2024 elections. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @ajbcomms