Good PR

A date for your diaries, everybody… 13 August is National Prosecco Day. Circle it in red pen, check your stock levels and definitely, definitely do not forget. 

Italian aperitif brand Aperol is ensuring that Londoners remember the momentous day by hand delivering Aperol Spritz cocktails to various households around the capital city between 13 August until the 15 August; after which it will be Manchester’s turn for a few days.

The ‘Aperol-ivery’ service, as it’s being called, will involve an Italian Aperol bartender travelling around in a little van, handing out two ready-made cocktails as a time. Obviously it’s a big old place, that London, so not everyone’s going to get their hands on the free booze. In order to do so, people have been told to enter a competition and, if lucky, they will be selected as one of the winning households for the delivery service to swing by.

The delivery times on the London dates will be from 4pm until 10pm, the perfect time to have an after-work tipple. Plus, 13 August falls on a Monday and we all need a little cheering up at the start of the week, right?

I’m a big fan of a competition PR stunt, because normally it’s super tough to get a competition media coverage… way too promotional, you see. However, when you dress it up with a nice PR hook (in this case, linking it to National Prosecco Day and throwing a quirky little delivery service in there) it does just fine.

Bad PR

When you hear that there’s a product recall doing the rounds, one of the last things you’d want it to be about is condoms. That raises all kinds of questions and concerns, even before you know what the supposed issue could be.

Well, Durex has in fact issued a recall for certain batches of its Real Feel and latex-free condoms. The worry? Well, they might split.

I feel like this is worthy of an Eastenders ‘duf duf’ cliffhanger ending, but I will first divulge more information because this could actually be really serious in terms of the pregnancy and STI risks associated with the faulty condoms.

Durex fessed up and said that the products (sold in the UK and Ireland) seemed to be failing to pass ‘stringent’ shelf-life tests and could become especially unsafe to use the closer to the expiry date they got. A total of 10 batches with expiry dates between December 2020 and February 2021 have been recalled in the announcement. Although those dates are a little way off yet, there’s absolutely no point risking using any condoms from the batches in question; just in case.

Thankfully, loads of media outlets are covering the story to make potential owners of the dodgy batches aware of the recall, but this will no doubt cause trust issues with Durex.

Written by Shannon Peerless, 10 Yetis @ShazzaYeti on Twitter.
Seen any good or bad PR lately? You know what to do @10Yetis on Twitter or andy@10Yetis.co.uk on email