Why Comms Teams Are Wasting ￡10K a Month (And How to Fix It)
Chris Norton
Founder & MD at Prohibition, PRCA Grand Prix Award Winner. Host of Embracing Marketing Mistakes Podcast - Talks about #pr, #socialmediastrategy, #contentmarketing, #digitalmarketing #reputation and #crisiscomms
Hi Mistakers,
Following another really busy but positive week for the agency, with?Prohibition PR being shortlisted for two PRmoment awards?and myself being voted as one of the?most influential PR Tech leaders in 2025, we have another brilliant podcast guest for you to get your ears around. If that is an acutal thing?
What happens when you mix AI, PR, and one very expensive Google Ads mistake? You get one of the most honest conversations we’ve had on the podcast.
This week, Will and I sat down with Jono Matusky , founder of Newsprint, an AI-powered tool designed to help companies stay ahead of the media cycle. We talked about everything from his career journey (which included launching an incubator in communist Cuba) to how AI is reshaping PR and marketing. But perhaps the most entertaining part? The time he accidentally got a client’s Google Ads account banned.
The $10,000 Mistake
Jono took on a seemingly straightforward task: managing a client’s Google Ads campaign after they’d grown frustrated with agency costs. Everything was running smoothly, or so he thought.
What he didn’t realise was that the ad copy had dynamic keyword insertion, meaning it automatically reflected a user’s search terms, which was fine until he mistakenly included competitor names in the keyword targeting as well. ??
That meant when someone searched for a competitor’s help page, the ad falsely appeared to be from that competitor. Not only did that result in wasted advertising spend, but enough people reported it that Google shut down the account entirely. ??
A classic case of “we don’t know what we don’t know” and a reminder that sometimes, hiring experts is definitely worth it.
Why PR Teams Are Wasting $10K a Month
Despite that rather amusing screw-up, Jono also pulled back the curtain on a hidden cost in PR. He believes companies are spending $10K to $20K a month to get daily executive briefings on their and their competitor's media coverage to stay on top of their sectors.
Big brands spend money tracking press mentions, competitors, and industry news, often relying on manual monitoring and human-written reports. Jono believes AI can do it faster, better, and cheaper, eliminating hours of repetitive work while providing deeper insights. Now this is why I got him on the show, I think this is very clever.
But the million-dollar question is, will AI ever truly?replace?the strategic thinking of PR professionals? Or will it simply be another tool in our arsenal? That’s the big question, and we dive deep into it on this episode and we grill him carefully.
A Must-Listen for Marketers & PR Pros
If you’ve ever:
??Made a Google Ads mistake (hopefully not a $10,000 one)
? Wondered how AI can improve media monitoring and PR
? Spent far too much time compiling marketing reports … so this episode is for you.
Let me know what you think. Do you believe your CEO would pay ￡10k upwards a month for industry reports, and do you really see AI replacing marketing roles or just enhancing them? I have my own view.
Cheers
Chris
PS: Looking to sharpen your media skills? Join our Media Training Masterclass tomorrow and learn how to land your key messages properly. Secure your spot here: ?? Sign up for the masterclass now
Founder @ Newsprint | Keeping teams informed with AI-powered executive briefings
6 天前Thanks for having me on Chris! Great discussion. Looking forward to our feedback on the custom Marketing Mistakes daily briefing!
The media trainer that helps you avoid being misquoted, misunderstood or misrepresented. My team will ensure you get value out of speaking to the press.
6 天前I spent money on Google Ads last year and would suggest it's very easy to spend a lot of money on nothing while your Google manager assures you it's all going fine. "What would success look like to you," they said. "People spending moree money with me," I said. "That's not really what we do," they said, which is odd as I'd understood the whole idea of ads was to earn more than you spent...
PR Futurist | AI and technology for PR, Comms and Corporate Affairs | Measurement and Analytics | Reputation and Crisis Comms
6 天前He's right about using AI to create daily executive briefings. We built our first AI-driven briefing early last year. It was a fair bit of work. Today we could build a comparable one far more easily. We're now exploring how to create far more powerful ones.