P.o.P.
Horrifyingly unscrupulous
Horrifyingly unscrupulous. De Novo promised an "audience size" of 15,000, delivered 1500, and then claimed that the total # of subscribers to a playlist counted as "audience", even if they hadn't listened to that playlist since 1952 (or whatever.) Here is the letter I was forced to write to De Novo: Hi, Sorry, but I have to call BS on that. "Audience size" has an ordinary and regular meaning in this sentence "You can expect an audience size of about 15K-25K total listeners." I have saved a screen shot. `"About" means it could have, say, as low as 13,000. "Audience size", however, is not a synonym for "potential audience size", or any other implied modifier. In fact "total listeners" means if a single person listens to the song 100X, that reduces your obligation by 1. But the "audience size" for the song must be "about 15k-25k total listeners." The relevant definition from the Cambridge Dictionary: AUDIENCE: (dictionary cambridge org/dictionary/english/audience) the (number of) people watching or listening to a particular television or radio programme, reading a particular book (...) There is no definition for "audience" which means or implies "potential audience". Audience means audience. It's possibly simply bad English, but it remains an FTC violation, too: [Trustpilot blocked my FTC link, but Google: Truth in Advertising FTC] RESPONSE TO THEIR RESPONSE: 1. What slimy snake people. They have now committed two legal offences. Let's start with slander. This is actually actionable. These guys claim to be lawyers, they're pretty sh***y lawyers. My monthly listens are due to another song being on lots of playlists. 2. Beyond their slander, their tone here is, to put it another way, like 15th rate lawyers. On the email one of their employees wrote me it was even nastier - he actually threatened me. To be clear, De Nova THREATENED me for posting my real experience, SLANDERED me here, accompanied by a reasonable sounding response that is, if you analyse it, a slimy con. 3) De Novo could fulfil their contract by finding the RIGHT playlists, and keeping a song on them 'til it reaches the advertised number. This would, to be clear, entail rejecting unsuitable music. One might infer De Nova accept lots of unsuitable music. There is no dispute, nor alternate meaning of the word "audience". But the real thing you should remember - one of their employees threatened me like a 5th rate lawyer, privately, and the owner libeled me here, over a two hundred dollar dispute, rather than being honest, and gaining a client for life. I'd bet my budget is a quarter of their yearly revenue, so, for the final point - they suck as businessmen. Would you trust a businessman who loses a client with a mid 5 figure budget over a $200 test order (that i'll have returned by my credit card anyway)? What is the monetary damage to them, for revealing how utterly scummy they are. Let's close by pointing out they're from Florida, nowhere near anyone genuinely in any branch of entertainment except Disneyland and some boy band from the 90s I can't think of the name of. Lying, libelous, con artist, lawyers surely from the worst law school in America - what, a correspondence one? WHO HAVE NO BUSINESS SENSE AT ALL. Finally PLEASE DON'T BE FOOLED by their claims to offer coaching et al. They are a country away from the entertainment business. Not even members of any relevant (law) bar (ny/la) Stay away....
Response from De Novo AgencyJun 30, 2022
Mr. President, Happy to go over this with you, again. That total audience size we got you in front of in the 5 playlists we placed you in was over 30,000. This is more than double what we say on the product description. Like we said before when you first emailed us, the estimated audience size given on the product description is meant to show the total audience size (active followers) of the 3-5 playlists we put you in. We do not give estimations on what amount of streams you should expect. We do not guarantee an amount of streams. We cannot control the behavior of the listeners in the playlists, so we cannot give an accurate estimation for streams. If a listener does not listen for 30 seconds of more, they are not counted as a stream. We apologize for the confusion, but the audience size of the playlists is not meant to be an estimation or expectation of streams or monthly listeners for you. When we pointed this out to you, you immediately called it Bullsh*t, you threatened us with your bank, and you threatened us with the FTC. The dictionary definition fits perfectly for the description of listeners in the PLAYLISTS, thank you for making that distinction clear. Also took a look at your Spotify page, and it looks like you may have a large majority of artificial activity driving up your numbers. Any artist with 19,000 monthly listeners, but with no artist radio station or Fans Also Like section (both generated from Spotify itself) is a clear sign that the listeners you have on your page are artificial. We wish you and your 'audience' the best going forward.