Good PR

Dream job
As the weather hots up, everyone’s getting in the holiday mood and this week’s example of good PR will definitely make you want to pack your bags and jump on the next plane to the Caribbean.

It’s another dream job stunt, which as readers of this column (and any newspaper, for that matter) will know, always does well on the PR front.

This time, it’s Virgin Holidays that came up with an absolute belter of a dream job, in collaboration with model Jodie Kidd.

There’s a floating bar (well, on stilts) one mile off the coast of Jamaica run and owned by Floyd Forbes, called Floyd’s Pelican Bar, which was built back in 2001 and is only accessibly by boat (obviously).

Floyd hasn’t had a holiday since he opened the bar (a whole 18 years!), so it’s been announced that Virgin Holidays is looking for someone to cover his shifts this summer for one week to give him a well-earned rest.

The person has to be working in a pub or bar currently (ie, be an experienced bartender) in order to apply for what is essentially a holiday with a couple of bar shifts thrown in. Flights and accommodation will be thrown in for the winner and one guest, as well as £1,000 spending money and a trial shift with the main man Floyd when they get there, so that they can learn the ropes.

Jodie Kidd will help to judge the applications and pick the winner (she’s a landlady herself, as it happens) and although I think the story would’ve done just as well without a celebrity attached to it, it’s had pick up on the likes of CNN, Metro, Cosmo and literally LOADS of other media outlets in the UK and overseas. This thing’s gone global!  

Bad PR  

Food scare
Cow & Gate is under the media microscope this week, after issuing an urgent recall for a batch of baby food sold by major UK supermarkets. There are concerns that the jars of Cheesy Broccoli Bake could contain fragments of rubber, which has understandably sent parents into a bit of a spin.

Apparently, some pieces of a blue rubber glove could’ve contaminated the batch, which I’m guessing could cause a choking hazard, Cow & Gate said it “does now pose a health risk” (even though the comment also said that the product could be “unsafe to eat”).

It’s being called an isolated incident, but product recalls involving items or purchases for infants are the worst kind; and this will no doubt lead to a lot of parents (who were perhaps otherwise fans of Cow & Gate) losing trust in the brand completely.

The jars recalled were being sold in Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s and the batch number affected for any concerned parents reading this is 28122020.

Skin deep
In other news, Kylie Jenner is launching a new skincare line called Kylie Skin and, although the products aren’t even available until next week, it’s already being criticised online. One of the products in her new line is a walnut face scrub and that’s the one that has received the backlash on social media.

After suggesting that it’s so gentle on skin that people could use it daily, some people have bene quick to disagree; claiming that the ‘fine walnut powder’ in the ingredients (which is technically walnut shells) can be incredibly damaging to skin. As with other face products that contain tiny walnut pieces – including St Ives facial scrub which I’ve been using every day for over a year and had NO IDEA was bad – the exfoliation is taken one step too far and can actually cause micro-tears in the skin.

Here’s the video where Kylie bigs up the product…

…and some examples of tweets that were doing the rounds in response…

Whilst there are still plenty of Kylie’s adoring fans who will rush out to buy her products, as they always do, and it’ll probably sell out on day one, I can’t help but think there will also be a lot of people who might’ve bought it, but now definitely won’t. This is probably bad news for St Ives too, as I had no idea the face scrub was bad for me and will promptly stop using it, as I imagine plenty of others will after reading this news too.

So far, it’s been covered on the Daily Mail, The Independent, Cosmopolitan, The Sun and by many other titles.

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