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RAR Recommended But We Won’t Use The Logo

The Recommended Agencies Register and RAR Awards have long been a measure of how good a marketing agency is. When I was a Marketing Manager, I personally used the register to compare the agencies that we were considering for new projects.

There are no judges in the awards – RAR base the results off of your own customer feedback, submitted through their system. Agencies invite their customers (probably only their happy ones!) to rate them and if the agency scores high enough then they are ‘RAR Recommended’.

After being shortlisted for the BVM Start Up Business Of The Year Award (a catchy title!), I started to look for other award programmes that we might stand a chance of winning. Obviously the RAR Awards were the first on my list! While I did pay it some attention and registered our account, I never went any further with the process once I saw the £950/year membership required to enter the awards.

Most people reading this will be aware of our charitable nature and our services to the community. Needless to say, no matter how good the RAR programme is and how much I want us to enter the RAR Awards, £950 can do a lot in the community!

A chase up email from RAR on Monday prompted me to invite our customers to rate us and by Tuesday morning, we were rated high enough to be ‘RAR Recommended’ – wahoo! So thank you to our customers for their support.

However, I really can’t bring myself to pay the £950 for their cheapest membership fee. It’s not me being tight-fisted I can assure you and I definitely see value in their services, but I feel it’s just not right for us.

We currently have plans to re-open the Dorset Science & Tech Centre to help us with our quest to inspire children into science and coding. £950 would completely fund this project and in turn get science in front of thousands of children.

So while it’s true, we may be missing out on some PR opportunities and may even lose a couple of future prospects, we’ll be investing our money in the community instead – Sorry RAR…

For more information on the Recommended Agency Register, or the RAR Awards, feel free to visit their website: http://recommendedagencies.com

Chris Ryu "Chameleon"

Chris has been a developer for over 15 years. Known for his unique experience crosses over many fields.

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