Well we’ve well and truly made a dent into August and, I’m sorry, but how did that happen?

In my head we’re still stuck in some kind of muddled up March-April-May hybrid and the fact that we’re now effectively speeding towards Christmas at lightening speed is just too much for me to handle right now!

Anyway, as selected members of the team here at Yeti HQ celebrate our first week back in the office for almost FIVE MONTHS, here is my take on the weeks very best and worst examples of PR.

Good PR

VeganLiftz

If there was ever going to be one specific type of PR story guaranteed to grab our attention here at 10 Yetis Digital, it’s without a doubt job stunt. In fact we’ve even been known to work on a few very successful campaigns like this for our lovely clients in our time.

One of the most recent cleverly executed examples comes from research agency VeganLiftz, who are looking to pay three bacon and steak loving meat-eaters the whopping sum of £2000 each to switch to a totally plant based diet for an entire month.

The purpose of offering the ‘role’, which has already generated some great coverage across the US and Europe, will allow the brand to closely analyse the initial benefits of switching from a meat-based to vegan diet in such a short amount of time, and aims to demonstrate the real life effects being a vegan has on a person’s health and fitness.

Anyone UK based looking to apply must be based in either Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow or London, have no underlying health conditions and have been on a meat-based diet for at least the past year.

Well I’m off to apply for it – two grand for a year of eating some dreamy vegan food and LOTS of visits to Leon for some Love Burgers? I’M IN!

Eat Out To Help Out

Let’s be honest here guys, there’s been a LOT of criticism surrounding the Chancellor of the Exchequers ‘Eat Out To Help Out Scheme’ and you might be wondering what I’m doing adding it to the ‘Good’ column.

Well, as I had some annual leave earlier this week I decided to take my parents and my daughter out for lunch at a local Italian restaurant taking part and it was pretty shocking to see just how popular the scheme is proving in encouraging us Britons to venture out and support the local economy with a cheeky discount. From what I can see from speaking with loved ones and online coverage relating to it, the scheme has well and truly done a 360 when compared to the nations initial sarcastic reaction.

I stand by one thing, it still has a seriously hilarious and sexually suggestive name. But I’m choosing to believe Rishi totally did that on purpose to drum up social media mentions and get a national conversation going. It worked to be fair.

Of course, whether Britons will be quite as enthusiastic about taking trips out to eat in restaurants, cafes and pubs will be as popular once costs go back to full price come September still remains to be seen, but for now it’s a big fat green tick from me and my appetite.

Bad PR

McDonalds

You know those online news articles you read that seem like they’re just too ridiculous or unlikely to be true and that they must be some kind of a practical joke or crazy urban legend, until you see the accompanying images that make you question EVERYTHING? Yeah – this is one of them (plus it was reported on BBC News you kinda know it’s legit).

Anyway…

Fast food chain McDonalds are investigating after a six-year old British girl from Aldershot, Hampshire, who nearly choked on a chicken nugget which contained the remnants of a blue face mask, as captured in images and a video by her mother.

The girls mother described the blue mask as being baked into a number of the happy meal nuggets ‘like chewing gum’ and believes that her daughter could’ve choked to death on the material had she not been in the room to assist.

The content associated with this story looks like pretty damning evidence to me, and it will be interesting to see how McDonalds manages to handle this tough situation during such an economically uncertain time.

Virgin Atlantic

So Richard Branson hasn’t been having the best time of it after multiple news sources were reporting earlier in the week that Virgin Atlantic is ‘running out of money.’

A UK Court this week heard that whilst the airline is ‘fundamentally sound’, a restructuring and fresh cash injection is critical to securing it’s future, with lawyers for Virgin urging creditors to approve a £1.2 billion rescue deal imminently.

Like all companies operating within the travel industry, the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent travel bans have hit Virgin Atlantic hard. Last month as it attempted to secure the deal it was reported that Virgin Atlantics cash flow would drop to ‘critical levels’ by the middle of August, and would run out of money altogether by the week commencing September 28^th.

Outwardly, the brand remains hopeful that with recapitalisation that it will be able to bounce back and return to it’s former glory, but only time will tell if we’ll be using the airline to take our holidays in years to come.