Good and Bad PR: Co-op’s crisis comms fail, Zuckerberg goes silent and Red Arrows surprise newlyweds

Another week, another column and we take a slow, steady meander through the hits and misses of the last seven days.

Don’t forget, if you want to hand out some praise, or maybe dollop on some dung about a campaign that has caught your eye, I am easy to find on the social media platforms. All messages received in total confidence, especially if you are dishing the dirt on skullduggery. Onwards

Angry members revealed by Co-op

The Co-op has quickly become a case study in how not to do crisis communications. The fallout from the IT hack continues and the story gained new life thanks to its CEO confirming what the hackers had already told everyone, all of its member data was stolen as part of the April hack.

Up until April, I think the vast majority of us thought of Co-op as a safe pair of hands when it came to communications.

Let’s not forget, when the Co-op Live arena was going through its PR hell, it was rumoured to have turned to the supermarket comms team for advice and guidance. I think it could be the other way round now.

The CEOs brand Mea-culpa took place during a television news interview. It lacked sincerity, empathy and balance between the negative effect on consumers and the IT staff who tried and failed to dispel the hackers. Whilst Marks and Spencer received warm praise for the classy way that it has dealt with the situation, Co-op appears to have gone down a completely different route.

I was inundated with messages sharing clips of the TV interview. It was clear that the brief was to try and position the hack as an adversarial situation where the plucky IT team were framed as being the heroes of the hour, trying their best to “fight off” the criminals. The message didn’t land.

What next for the Co-op? If the story rumbles on, then stage three of the crisis communications playbook states that a member of the c-suite gets the Spanish Archer (El Bow). This is to try and show that it is being taken very seriously at board level, and gives the brand the chance to say it has turned the corner.

Bad PR for the Co-op, and I really feel for its comms team right now.

Zuckerberg wins video meeting bingo via “can you hear me ok” faux pas

Zuck was scheduled to be the jewel in the crown of a new tech-industry-mag TV show interview this week. He appeared to really enjoy it. The only issue, no one could hear him. He had a tech fail.

You must start to feel for him, right? Everyone’s least favourite tech billionaire (and that is saying something considering Elon is in the same bracket) just can’t catch a break. It probably was not even his fault, and you pity the poor tech person that caused it.

There is just something very uncool about Zuckerberg, or maybe I am just reading way too much in the film, The Social Network. He can’t really be like that in real life, can he?

You would think that taking part in a brand-new online tech channel launch would be an open goal for him to nail. Sadly not. Bad PR for Zuck.

WeTransfer proves you can polish a turd and also cover it in glitter

The electronic file shifting platform of choice for everyone has had a rocky week. It changed its terms of service. The tech press and muggles alike went mad.

The new terms were (wrongly in my opinion) interpreted as WeTransfer saying it owned our files when we uploaded them, and that it was going to share content with the AI overlords to help train LLM’s. The negative media coverage flooded in.

This is where its crisis team fired into action and firmly turned it around. The team put out a simple explainer about what was really happening, and briefed the media accordingly.

Once that was all fed into the sausage news machine, the positive media coverage came out of the other side. Quite the turnaround. Great and super-fast work by the comms team and most importantly, it saved them from a bad PR from me.

Red Arrows fly in to give the UK some positivity

Three negative stories down, let’s go for something far nicer. The Red Arrows gave us the feel-good story of the week, and the media loved it.

The daughter of a couple getting married last weekend noticed that the ceremony was on the planned flight path of the Red Arrows. She wrote to them to ask if they could give it a bit of Hollywood as they flew overhead. The reply came back that it was up to the flight leader on the day.

The flight leader truly delivered. As the most famous fighter-jet dance-troupe in history flew by they turned on the smoke and made the happy couple’s day even happier. Obviously some muggles filmed it and obviously, that video was sold to the media.

It was worth it though as the footage got beamed around the world. Great PR by the Red Arrows, what a lovely bunch (unless you are a baddy in a Mig).

No affinity shown towards customers by water companies

Affinity Water is the latest utility company to prove my January 2025 prediction right, that the industry will continue to be blighted by negative media. Its CEO received a pay packet of £1.6m. This is despite the regulator saying it has “elevated concern” about the company’s financial situation.

I decided to use a crude metric and GCSE maths to see how that figure stacks up. It equates to £0.41p for every customer that the company has. Compared to Severn Trent’s CEO whose salary works out at £0.70p per customer, and Bristol Waters’ CEO pay is £0.72p per customer, the pay packet appears high to mid-range.

Ironically, the lowest paid water co CEO based on customer numbers belongs to Thames Water. He gets paid £0.06p per customer. Probably for the best given their recent performance.

The water industry is in dire need of a shake up or it is going to go down the plug hole. Bad PR for Affinity Water and well done to OFWAT for outing it.

ASA triggers a bad Trip

The final Bad PR of the week goes to CBD drinks brand, Trip. The Advertising Standards Authority banned one of its ads for making unauthorised claims. Three complaints were made about the claims, I am guessing from competitors as this is where most claims of this nature come from.

The ad claimed that its cucumber and mint drink could help reduce stress and anxiety. The brand, which I notice is stocked in the UK’s poshest supermarket, Waitrose, can’t run the ads again. The company told the ASA in its defence that it hoped to run these ads again in the future once the science bods had come back with proof to back up the claims. Quite the defence.

Trip went down the Ronan Keating crisis communications route; “you say it best, when you say nothing at all” and refused to comment to the plethora of media who got in touch asking for a statement.

The volume of coverage is enough to trigger this week’s final bad PR of the week, and the mistaken belief that keeping quiet was the best course of action is the icing on the cake. This story will now follow the owners around in every media interview they take part in until they address it.

Pointless science of the week goes Beijing University of Chinese Medicine

If you had to guess which of the following exercises would prepare you best for sleeping, strength training or yoga, I think we can all pick the winner.

Still, another week, another dollop of pointless science. This time it comes from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. It commissioned research into, wait for it, 22 other global research studies of what exercise undertaken before bed can help you sleep the best.

I really expect better from a Chinese based university. A country best known for its ruthless efficiency and industrious nature, and yet its academic institutions seem to be falling in line with our frivolous Western vague science.

Fancy standing up in defence of scientists (not the ones who do the good stuff, more the pointless science that I out every week)? You know where to find me. Thanks as ever to Alan S Morrison for his story spots.

If you missed Andy spreading the GBPR gospel directly from a recycling bin last week, you can catch it again here: