Usually when a longtime agency CEO is ready to move on, he or she might take up golf or backgammon. It’s safe to say that launching an innovative comms tech operation is definitely the road less traveled.
But that’s what longtime KWT Global — formerly the eponymous agency Kwittken — CEO Aaron Kwittken did at the start of 2021 when he stepped away from the firm’s top role to focus on PRophet, a PR AI-driven company launched with parent MDC Partners.
The PRophet platform was developed by Kwittken and pitched through MDC Ventures Inside program, a kind of “Shark Tank” run by the holding company that has since been absorbed by Stagwell. Taking inspiration from technology used to determine whether movies or books will be successes or flops, PRophet attempts to predetermine a reporter’s interest in a story pre-pitch. The platform creates a “persona” for journalists based on their past work, using their past sentiment and how other media might syndicate their coverage.
Since its launch, the PRophet platform has also expanded its capabilities by inking an exclusive agreement with podcast database Podchaser, which expanded the global reach of its customers to thousands of podcasts as the medium became even more popular during the pandemic. It also bolstered its own technological prowess by agreeing to an exclusive deal with PeakMetrics, which has a database of verified journalists, along with their contact info.
The ultimate goal? Using PRophet to do the legwork of strategizing pitches against journalists’ backgrounds to free up PR professionals to do other tasks while the technology takes care of the legwork.
