Everyone in the PR business knows the drill, right? You have a client. They want a campaign. You spend some serious time with them and do the necessary research. Then you make your presentation, debate the finer points of difference and then get the campaign under way.

According to PR Week it seems the New York University Child Study Center, advised by Rubenstein Communications, went out with a campaign designed to bring attention to autism. The campaign featured “ransom notes”, with which the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) took immediate offense.

The implication that children had been “kidnapped” by autism was a source of controversy that managed to shut down the entire campaign barely into its intended four months run. It is surely a reminder when dealing with issues of public health that an acute sensitivity is demanded that is not necessarily needed when selling widgets. Rubenstein is a legendary first class firm with a list of premiere clients. Doubtless they will recover what surely was an inadvertent fumble and bring about a better understanding of autism to folks in the New York area.

But the question is: what’s the lesson here? While the story is somewhat unclear, it would appear that there was at a minimum a lack of coordination between NYU, Rubenstein and the autism community as represented by ASAN. The autism advocates, it seems, were either not in on the design of the campaign or had no input when it was taken to the runway and readied for take-off.

So if the lesson is to have the client on board when a campaign is designed, much less when it is launched into the public arena, when a glitch occurs – and what happened here certainly sounds like more than a glitch – how does a firm repair the damage? By continuing to work with a client to deliver ultimate satisfaction.

Launching a PR campaign is not unlike launching the space shuttle. There is always a checklist to be followed, with each item to be checked upon completion. If something basic is missed – and launching the autism campaign without the apparent support of ASAN would seem to be basic in this case – the campaign, like a launch rocket, can explode very much in public view.

It’s a risk a PR office can’t afford, even when they are as big, prestigious and clearly as competent as Rubenstein.