Good PR
It’s not uncommon for McDonald’s to get slaughtered by the press for one reason or another; whether it’s the calories in the fast food chain’s dishes or what percentage chicken the nuggets actually are.
In the last week or so though, there’s been some really good coverage for the home of the golden arches, thanks to a really cool stunt that was executed by Swedish marketing firm Nord DDB.
McDonald’s in Sweden has been focused on a sustainability drive for a little while and, apparently, many of the branches in the Scandinavian country have beehives on the roof. As part of this, Nord DDB helped the fastfood chain to create the world’s smallest McDonald’s, which just so happened to be a beehive disguised as a replica (to scale) restaurant.
A video was created and released in time for World Bee Day last week (a nice example of piggybacking on an awareness day) and the resulting coverage was awesome. It was built as part of fundraising activity for the Ronald McDonald House Charities which supports children and young people. It was auctioned off on 21 May and a bidder paid more than $10,000 for the ‘McHive’.
I’ve spotted the story on titles such as The Independent, Evening Standard, BuzzFeed, Metro, The Sun and many others (globally), so it’s clear that this has been a resounding success.
Check out the video for the awesome PR stunt here:
Bad PR
The Spice Girls reunion world has got off to a bad start, resulting in a lot of bad press, after fans were so fed up with what was apparently “appalling” sound quality and issues that many walked out and are now demanding a refund. This was the case for both the first show in Dublin and the second show in Cardiff.
@spicegirls not much better in Cardiff... The sound was awful again.. What a way to spend money! #refundplease
— Rhys (@_RPerrett) 27 May 2019
@spicegirls it was a shame that you still had not fixed the sound at your Cardiff gig tonight. Couldn’t hear half of it!
— Ceris Hymas (@HymasC) 27 May 2019
As someone with tickets to the Bristol show in a couple of weeks, I’m really hoping that this is all sorted before then, but if it isn’t then Sporty, Scary, Ginger and Baby are going to have more problems on their hands.
They may have already sold a load of tickets, but if the sound issues continue for the upcoming shows and fans keep requesting refunds at the rate they have been, then they could face lost earnings in the near future if they decide to offer any sort of compensation (although I’m sure that would be at the expense of the production company rather than the singers themselves). And whilst that would only make a minute dent in the amount they’ll make from the tour, that’s by the by.
When a tour is as highly anticipated as this one, with Spice Girls fans turning up in their hoards to have a singalong and see the very women they idolised as 7-year-olds, there’s a lot at stake if something goes wrong; but mostly from a reputational standpoint rather than financial.
The sound issues and fan outbursts have been written about widely, so the pressure is on to get things right for the next lot of shows. As for me, I’ll probably be so wine drunk and belting out the lyrics too loud to actually be able to hear the real Spice Girls on the night.
*At the time of writing this, they haven’t yet performed the Manchester show on the 29th just yet, so fingers crossed the sound issues were sorted and fans had nothing but praise to give.
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
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