If you're in the "startup" business, where the real product is the business itself, this sort of operation is standard practice. It starts with having a PR comp

If you're in the "startup" business, where the real product is the business itself, this sort of operation is standard practice. It starts with having a PR company - a truly productive one. Add on some great media contacts made over the years and you're playing an A game. To an extent all business runs like this. It actually is much more difficult to enforce the now, but imagine a world in which only those who can afford advertising have any public voice at all. As an added bonus, those who buy advertising are at least at the front of the line to get positive articles written about them. Those 2% of your customers you inevitably piss off can't drag your name through the mud because they have no truly public forum for their opinion. That's pretty close to how things were before the web.