Good and Bad PR: A bad week for PGA and Shell, Jeremy Clarkson is laughing though

The summer has landed, the Pimms and ice creams are ready, but first of all, join me in a saunter across the glamourous world of public relations. That’s right, it is time for this week’s Good, and Bad, PR.

Good PR

Egaoiku

Let’s start with a silly but fun one. The government in Japan is hinting that its population are continuing to wear face masks because… they have forgotten how to smile.

Step forward Egaoiku, a company that gives lessons in how to smile. It is rounding up those who claim they have forgotten how to use their face muscles properly and is retraining them in how to smile.

Don’t shoot the messenger! I know it is a completely bonkers story, but it caught the eye of the global media and gives us the first feel-good story of the week. I am just praying that Egaoiku opens a franchise in London and teaches some of that lot how to smile every now and again.

The Grand Tour

Speaking of still smiling. Despite being cancelled more times than a Cross Country Trains Service, Jeremy Clarkson (and crew) have enjoyed more media success from the launch of just the trailer of their new The Grand Tour special.

This comes in the same week where the farming superstar even survived publicly sticking up for Schofield. The trailer has had millions of views and hundreds of media hits since its launch and it shows that despite him having a car crash of an opinion on everything, the general public, around the world, still have time for him.

The Grand Tour week ended on a bit of a sour note via James May. He said in an interview that this may well be their last episode. Not because they had been cancelled, but because their contracts were coming to an end, and they were getting a bit old for it all. Still no word from Amazon on the plan for the trio, post 2024.

Bad PR

PGA

Moving on to Bad PR and the world had a WTAF moment this week thanks to the PGA announcing it was merging with LIV. For those of you who have zero interest in people who hit little white balls, move on.

The Saudi-government-backed LIV tour has been warring with the PGA since its launch. The PGA, and some of its players, have said some harsh things about the Saudi backers and yet, money always talks and now everyone is best friends. Maybe.

This won’t be the end of the public drama. We are all nervously waiting to see what the two main defenders of the PGA, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have to say. Given they apparently had no advance notice that this was being announced, and how much they defended the PGA, they are not going to take this lightly.

Shell

Another big brand that has had a Bad PR week is Shell. To be fair, there has to be a certain expectance within the comms team of a company like this that there will the occasional flair up in the media. Sometimes though, they don’t help themselves.

The Advertising Standards Authority said that some of the claims in its adverts around how clean its overall energy production is were misleading. Shell disagreed, of course, but the ASA is sticking to its guns.

It relates to a 2022 billboard ad in Bristol and a YouTube advert ran at the same time. Shell stands accused by the ASA of leaving out some information about its more polluting work with fossil fuels.

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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