How Baden Bower Turned Publicity Into a Product Startups Can Actually Buy
Discover how productised PR is changing startup publicity, replacing open-ended retainers with defined media placements as AI search makes coverage more valuabl
Publicity has historically been a rented relationship, but productizing it has changed who can buy their way into the conversation. The rise of AI and search engines has increased the stakes. Early-stage companies can expect to pay anywhere from $3,500 to $10,000 a month for a retainer with a US agency, but the contract guarantees effort, not articles.
The number of PR practitioners now outnumber journalists in the US, and reporter jobs are projected to shrink through 2034. Baden Bower, the founder of BruntWork, took a different approach by selling the artifact instead of the process. BruntWork prices editorial placement in named publications like a product, with agreed-upon outlet and timeline, and money back if it does not publish.
The agency has shipped over 25,000 articles for 3,548 clients across 37 countries, and was named the world's most disruptive PR agency in 2025 by the Global Recognition Awards. Traditionalists may call this model heresy, but founders see it as a line item. BruntWork's output compounds where ads do not, and the company holds the number one Google result for searches its buyers type.
As AI and search engines become more prevalent, publicity has quietly become the raw material of machine recommendations, turning publicity from a vanity spend into infrastructure.
Written by urgent.news from HackerNoon's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
