The reactions from PR, marketing and brand specialists come after Personal Touch Financial Services announced this morning that it had axed Paaleads from its panel as a direct result of the gaffe.
This decision came despite a retraction of the claim by Moneysupermarket, but Dev Malle, sales and marketing director at Personal Touch said it was “too little too late”.
Dean Jones, head of Paaleads, declined to comment on whether the press statement from Moneysupermarket had been vetted by Paaleads before being issued yesterday, but said the firm was committed to the broker market.
John Wriglesworth, managing director of The Wriglesworth Consultancy, one of the biggest mortgage PR firms in the UK representing around 10 clients including Precise Mortgages, Connells and Your Move, believed the press release was clearly a “cock-up” on the part of Moneysupermarket but that it had done the right thing by retracting the statement.
He said: “I think this situation should be viewed as an embarrassment though, rather than causing permanent damage. Though there’s always going to be a tension between brokers and direct to market, I don’t think Paaleads will suffer too much.”
Debbie Staveley, director of mortgage public relations specialist firm bClear Communications, said the reaction so far was extremely damaging for Paaleads.com.
Staveley, who also does PR for rival lead generating firm Leadbay as well as amongst others Linear and network First Complete, said: “This could possibly have a devastating effect – people are rightly outraged.
“And I would say it’s a classic case of one part of a company not talking to another – Paaleads probably didn’t see the release before it went out, and there are probably a lot of upset people there.”
Richard Hurst, an independent PR in the mortgage market representing firms such as TrigoldCrystal, Charlbury Group and Gateway Surveyors, said: “This is a very unfortunate situation. We’re now in a financial environment where you’ve got to be incredibly careful about how you phrase things and how things are interpreted.
“Things like this can genuinely damage a company, particularly in this market. Brokers are understandably sensitive, very good at voting with their feet and they have long memories. Especially as there are some very viable alternative lead generation companies in the market. This could have a lasting impact on Paaleads’ reputation.”
Simon Maule, director of financial services PR firm Linstock Communications, which represents AIFA and the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries, added that Paaleads’ ability to recover its reputation with mortgage brokers would depend on “how they go about building bridges”.
He said: “This looks like a classic case of don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story and in this case it’s clearly done more harm than good.
“As a PR you have to make sure you align all business objectives with your publicity messages because the last thing you want to do is ostracise your key partners.”
And Dominic Hiatt, director of agency Rhizome PR, which amongst others represents the Coreco Group and Drawbridge Finance, said: "It's very surprising that Moneysupermarket, or its PR agency, didn't check the facts.
“Maybe Moneysupermarket.com's insatiable hunger for media coverage meant it failed to consider the corporate ramifications of its release.
“Whatever the reason for the error, on this occasion a misjudged top line looks set to impact Moneysupermarket's bottom line."
PR firm Lansons Communications, which handles media relations for Moneysupermarket, declined to comment on the damage done to Paaleads, which handles its PR internally.
But a spokesman from Moneysupermarket told Mortgage Introducer: “Obviously we wouldn’t comment on any individual relationships but I do want to reiterate that we are fully supportive of the broker market.
“Our intention with yesterday’s press release was to highlight the vagaries of the mortgage market and we never intended to criticise brokers.
“We also didn’t say don’t use brokers, we would never do that. Intermediaries are a very, very important part of what we do and we believe the broker really does add value.
“Clearly there has been a reaction in the broker community and we respect that and apologise that this press release has been misconstrued.”
