All the Good PR from Charlie’s big day: It has been newsjacking heaven for brands and agencies alike

Here we are again, and this week’s Good and Bad PR is one with a twist. No Bad PR, instead it is all the Good PR from Corrie Charlie’s big day. It has been newsjacking heaven for brands and agencies alike.

Aldi

First up, let’s give the media some love itself. The Sun took a quirky stance on the whole event by sending intrepid reporter, Sophie King, to check out every coronation chicken sandwich across all of the supermarkets to see which was the best.

Plot spoiler, Aldi won. I was slightly disappointed to see that not one affiliate link was used in the article, but it did not stop me from smiling at this fun piece. Nice work from The Sun.

Uber

Moving on to the brand side and some of the big boys came out to play.

My favourite has to be Uber, I am told, launched by them lovely people at Hope and Glory PR. The TaxiCab 2.0 service announced it was launching a carriage ride option for the day of the Coronation and it really landed. Not only did it get a swathe of online and print media, but it also got syndicated coverage across the Global radio network.

Brilliant work from my favourite cravat-wearing PR agency boss and his team.

Burger King

Loads of brands offered “deals” and special offers around the big day but a few really stood out.

Burger King, one of my favourite mischievous brands (it does some very funny campaigns) launched a great, but simple, offer. Buy one Royale and get one free.

See what it did there? Simple, funny, effective and good use of one of the most sought-after products. Importantly, the media have also loved the story and it is has made it into pretty much every round-up article on Coronation deals.

Pret

I was surprised more brands, like the higher-end supermarkets, did not do more with Coronation Chicken meal deal offers. Instead, it was left to Pret which got a strong number of column inches (do we still mention them?) for announcing a free sarnie to its Club Pret members on Saturday.

Bill’s

Bill’s, the restaurant group, is the only brand that I saw who offered something specifically for pets. Free dog treats will be handed out to anyone who buys a main course meal on the Coronation.

It is unclear if you get the treat even if you don’t have a dog, but hey, cheaper than a pudding I suppose.

Mars

Moving back to more stunt-type activations and Mars, of chocolate fame, created a life-sized bust of King Charles using 18 litres of the brown stuff.

It looks scarily realistic and I was so blown away with the quality I immediately suspected AI/CGI involvement but no, apparently it is real. The quality is probably why it got coverage everywhere.

Rightmove

Rightmove weighed in with a nice, super cheap, super effective campaign that really landed. It even got a placement on the normally royal-bashing Guardian. It listed a number of castles currently for sale on its site that it said were “fit for a king”.

A nice, soft sell newsjacking by the property legend which rules the PR landscape for its industry. Even more kudos for getting the Guardian to run it.

PG Tips

One of the nation’s favourite brew makers, PG Tips, came up with the goods on the surreal Coronation tribute side. It released a fantastic video that showcases the brand playing “God Save the King” made entirely out of tea making noises.

I mean, it's odd, but I love it and so did the media. Massive kudos to Smoking Gun PR for coming up with that one and making it happen.

Lego

Finally, let’s take our hats off to Lego. Radio, print, BBC and pretty much everywhere for creating a very realistic Coronation scene out of the toe-hating toy bricks.

32 thousand pieces were used and it took over 1,000 hours, using a team of six people. Based on my attempts of making Lego sets, I can only imagine the bickering over the instructions. The coverage was phenomenal through and I truly think they are all the winners of the Coronation newsjacking bonanza.

Written by Andy Barr, owner of 10 Yetis Digital. Seen any good or bad PR lately? Abuse and contradictory points welcomed over on The Twitter @10Yetis or andy@10Yetis.co.uk on email