I have read almost 1/4 of this guy's book--Trust Me, I'm Lying--and it is actually interesting. He rather explicitly describes the process by which he has manipulated the news media for various clients, including American Apparel (he is the guy who makes those "controversial" ads), by feeding or leaking info to blogs (his definition of a "blog" is very broad) and then working those stories up the media food chain. There is lots of puffery and some of it will trigger any reasonable person's b.s. detector, However, a lot of it rings true and he definitely presents a lot of interesting nut-and-bolts ideas--that may or may not actually work.

As to financial results, I can recall one instance where he specifically identified a link between a campaign and financial results. Whether you believe it is another matter . . .