Good and Bad PR: JLR protects EV, ASA takes swing at GC and mammoth clicks for Reach plc

After the boom of high profile media campaigns over the last few weeks, the bust of the pre-holiday season lull appears to have landed. Fear not though, there is still plenty to take a gander at.

Who is going to win the PR praise and who is going to get trolled? Read on to find out.

If you didn't already know, Andy Barr has a regular video slot on our TikTok page. Take a look at what he and Mike had to say last week:

Crouching liar hidden Jaguar

Do you remember the story on 24 March about the electric Jaguar car driver who claimed his vehicle had malfunctioned, and the plod had to come and forcibly stop his car on the motorway? I always felt there was something fishy about this. The police have now charged the driver with dangerous driving and fraud/misrepresentation.

The story has restricted reporting at the minute because of the pending court case. I am ok to say that Jaguar offered support to find out what happened, as it said so at the time of the incident. The story blew up massively at the point of it happening. A wider government report into the EV market had previously highlighted that the electric car market was blighted with an unusual dollop negative stories, compared to its traditional fuel powered relatives

There was an industry implication that the non-EV brands could be adding fuel to the fire of these negative stories. Jaguar clearly wasn’t taking stories of this nature lying down and has come out firing to protect its reputation. Best of all, it has helped to repair its EV street-cred by officially saying nothing at all.

Great PR for Jaguar.

Gemma Collins gives easy win to Advertising Standards Authority

Gemma Collins has become the unfortunate poster girl of the latest ASA crack-down into brands using shonky adverts to push weight loss tablets, injections and gizmo’s.

It drove the message home to pharmacy brands though, and this is what the ASA is after. The PR playbook for the advertising regulator is straight forward enough.

Identify a sector that has rogue ad operators. Look for a celebrity or influencer who has, probably unwittingly, breached the advertising code on behalf of a brand. Put that celebrity front and centre of the public flogging and watch the coverage come piling in.

I doubt Collins really knew the extent of what she was being asked to say or promote, or maybe she did, who knows. Either way, a strong week for the ASA which got its message across huge swathes of the media, and influencer platforms alike.

Center Parcs rivals John Lewis for maximising a PR opportunity

You will not be surprised to hear that your favourite PR columnist (me, if that is not immediately clear) was asked to give his thoughts on a local authority PR campaign around a new building project by a respected media outlet. The council stood accused of longing out the positive PR mentions via multiple stories without giving anything much away.

I explained, dear reader, that this is the aim of our game. John Lewis may be credited with birthing the “hero” content campaigns via its Christmas TV ads (I once worked out it did nine press stories relating to just this one TV ad), but many other organisations and brands have taken it to the next level.

Center Parcs got another swathe of positive publicity this week, thanks to formally submitting plans for its first holiday park to be based in Scotland. It was first announced in November and if the PR gods shine bright on the campaign, they can probably get another 15-20 stories out of this particular PR cherry. Is there anything wrong with this? Absolutely not. Does it enrage some in media land, clearly so.

Center Parcs, you keep it up and I can’t wait to read about: the first spade in the ground, the exciting (but entirely ok) nature-find made when building has begun, the first interviews for roles at the park, the brands that will have a presence and all the wider goodness that comes with a beast like this campaign. Great PR

Snitches don’t get stitches anymore, they get a bonus

Airport operator Swissport made the cardinal sin this week of thinking that a controversial internal memo from a manager would not find its way in the hands of the muggles. The memo advised staff they would now get a small bonus if they identified travellers who were over the baggage allowance (luggage, not emotional).

The media were outraged, and this only grew when they found out that other airport brands do the same.

When you take the emotion out, it all makes sense. It seems a more than sensible approach to making sure our air-flying tin-cans stay up where they should. It is the optics surrounding the message that caught many off guard.

Thinking about the budget airlines especially, the penalties for bringing a bag that is over the agreed limit is often more than the original flight itself. This is what has the people riled up.

Looking a bit deeper into the story and you have a sneaking suspicion that this crisis comms moment was brought to you by the phrase “disgruntled employee”. The original memo was sent in… 2023. It only found its way into the hands of the media this week. Someone with an axe to grind, I think. Bad PR for Swissport for the optics alone.

The King of England could potentially have a Monzo account

I feel that Monzo gets an unfair amount of time in the media. My short time spent working in the financial services sector gives me enough experience to know that it is a tight knit industry, where outsiders are not looked upon favourably (just go and watch the documentary, Bank of Dave. It is exactly like that).

When Monzo launched in 2015, I always felt like it faced an uphill battle on the reputation front, from its own industry alone. It has not helped itself though. Customer service issues, account closure frictions and now, breaching anti-financial crime rules.

Some wags were able to get accounts registered to addresses such as 10 Downing St, Buckingham Palace and, of course, its own address. The FCA has handed down a £21m fine for this.

Monzo, to be fair, issued a strong “sorry, but not sorry as this was fixed ages ago” statement that was punchy and would have further irked the British banking establishment. I admire Monzo for its gumption.

Still, you can’t avoid the overall negatives of the story, and it gets bad PR for letting it happen in the first place. It now needs an onslaught of positive media to get rid of all the negativity around its brand name. Has it ever considered launching a strawberry and cream sandwich I wonder (a reference, dear first-time-reader, to last week’s column).

Telegraph aids Reach plc with syndicators dream

The Telegraph gave Reach plc a helping hand with a clickbait story that could be syndicated across every regional newspaper. I will go further than that.

The Telegraph also gave the long-suffering pub trade a story that could be shared on socials like a PR dream.

It unleashed its top 500 pubs list for Great Britain. As we all know from Jeremy Clarkson’s farming show, there are probably only 501 pubs left in the UK right now, so it gave the whole industry a boost. Well, apart from the one that didn’t make it.

Ironically, the list was sat behind a paywall on The Telegraph, but if you pieced together all the Reach plc articles, you could see who made it and who didn’t.

The story was, literally, everywhere, including some regional TV and radio slots, and I love to see the media helping each other out like this.

Kudos to The Telegraph’s PR and marketing teams for getting it out so wide and far. I am sure the journo who wrote it all, Will Hawkes, will take this good PR gong as his finest career moment to date.

Pointless science of the week: University College London

I love that this end point has become a thing. Ok, so, I did it myself, but still, it’s fun. University College London science bods win the pointless science of the week award from me.

They did a study into whether different personality types are better suited to different gym workout regimes. Shock horror, all the extroverts love doing HIIT classes (probably looking at themselves in the mirror) and all the introverts like sitting under the stairs, crying whilst eating a Rustler burger. Ok, so the latter I have added for hugely comedic effect.

Thanks as always to Alan S Morrison for his story spotting.