Good and Bad PR: Amsterdam’s prophylactic hits headlines, Kyoto University releases purring research and RAC finds chatty passengers cause distractions

The weeks are flying by and the media agenda is fast and furious ahead of the expected summer lull. Some topics just aren’t going away. Thames Water is teetering, Starmer is in full winter fuel payment u-turn and Trump continues to tariff away.

Stick with me though, as we take an altogether sideways glance at the last seven days in public relations. Don’t forget you can catch my weekly video summary in all its glory over on the PRmoment TikTok account.

Scots show England how to put on a rail show

After my scathing review of the beginning of the re-nationalisation of the UK rail industry, I was inundated with messages from some of my old cronies in the rail sector. They pointed out that re-nationalisation may not always be the best way to get lower train fares.

Hey presto, this week the Scots of FirstGroup (HQ, Aberdeen, I used to work there) showed the rest of the rail industry how to do it. It has announced that it is launching a direct train from Scotland to London, that will run up to five times a day.

Why will this service be cheaper? Well it’s on the ‘open-access’ system. This is the same track as every other company, but the company is not receiving any government subsidy. The company has to therefore fight for your money. This will mean better trains, better service and cheaper prices.

The media loved it and I particularly loved the timing of the launch. It happened just a few days after Labour's botched attempt to breathe some life back into the rail industry. The coverage was brilliant, and FirstGroup and Lumo should be proud, not least because their comms team won the first good PR of the week.

Is that a sheep’s intestine in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

The age-old question that museum marketing managers everywhere ask, “how do you make people want to come and visit your relic haven”. The Dutch know better than anyone that sex sells, and this week saw one of their museums in Amsterdam fully embrace that approach.

Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has put a 200-year-old condom on display, made from animal intestines. If that wasn’t eye-catching enough, it has an illustration on the side of it (how big were they back then?) that depicts a nun making provocative moves towards three vicars.

The museum curators bought it at an auction and were unchallenged with their bids. The media has loved the story, making it as far as The Washington Post. The Post has an AI generated summary of the reader comments under its articles and that made me smile more than the condom story. Cheeky scamps were referencing Donald Trump in their comments apparently. It is only a matter of time before the Daily Mail deploys a similar comment summary tool and we will all be in trouble then!

Great PR for the Dutch PR team at the museum.

Scientists do more pointless research that gets media editors purring

Scientists in Japan win another of my reluctant good PR gongs. It’s nice that Kyoto University gets some global coverage but once again, I just don’t see the point of undertaking such pointless research.

It wanted to know if there was a genetic trait that could explain why some cats purr more than others. I mean, there are people out there who could really do with Team Science looking at their plight. Such as, how to harvest crops in barren land, how to make dirty water clean or how to cure a vast swathe of illnesses that plague the world, but no… Team Science in Japan is investigating cat purring.

It is something to do with long or short versions of their DNA repeat. I don’t know what that is, and nor do I really care. In a crude summary that considers all DNA repeat types; male cats are more like to purr towards humans and female cats are more likely purr in an aggressive way to unfamiliar people. I could add extra commentary to that but I think it is safer if I just stay quiet.

The coverage for the story was a hit with the syndicated press types and wins a reluctant good PR from me.

It's proven, chatty Cathy’s will kill us all!

In another win for the syndicated media lovers, the RAC spoke to 2691 UK car-drivers (not on the phone I hope) and tried to work out what is most likely to distract them.

There was one clear winner. Passengers chatting away. Everyone, including myself, assumed it would be mobile phone alerts or whining children in the back seat but now. It is your chatty mate sitting in the seat next to you.

The second most common distraction was the driver thinking about unrelated topics. I am guessing how to silence their chatty passengers.

I have seen a few surveys creeping back into the media headlines in the last month or so. I used to use surveys a lot at a former agency, but they became sneered at by the types of PRs who also go on about floating things down the Thames and “best jobs in the world”. Oh grow up, bore off and let brands do what they want, is what I say.

I don’t know who did the grunt work for this story but I love it and I also say that the RAC deserves my good PR gong for putting its name to it.

The London Plod takes on Apple and Google around phone theft and wins the media war

There was another one of those UK parliamentary committee hearings this week. Typically a politician aims to tear strips off an unsuspecting and poorly briefed CEO, the CEO makes the politician look like an out of touch fool and the media laps it up.

This week was a bit different. The Met Police had James Conway in their corner, and he came out firing when it came to him being grilled about phone theft in the UK, and particularly London. Dare I suggest the MPs were going to suggest switching the Tory hobby of hunting foxes for instead hunting out and trampling down all-clad-in-black-clothing-chavs who steal phones whilst riding motorbikes. Before any MP could get into full ranting mode, Conway hit them for six by blaming the phone companies for not doing more.

He pointed out that the phone companies could ensure that the phone disabling widgets that they have written into the phone software could be beefed up. It turns out that the ingenious chavs can sort a workaround so that the existing software protection can be usurped when the phone is taken to far flung places like the Far-East.

A massive 75% of stolen phones go abroad, and 28% end up in China or Hong Kong where the protection can be removed. The MPs sensed their opportunity to prod the plod had, quite rightly, gone and instead turned on the phone brands Apple and Google.

Apple sent its head of law enforcement requests and Google sent a senior engineer. Both made good use of their respective media training to trot out lines involving phrases like “industry-wide-approach” and “we are not saying we won’t do it” and then listing why they can’t.

The MPs scored a win, ably assisted by the ever-impressive Met Police. Good PR for the Met, bad PR for Google and Apple.

Cream rises despite radioactive matter

Last Good PR of the week goes to me old mucker Rich Leigh of Radioactive agency. He announced that he sold his agency to another firm called Munch. Fellow PRmoment columnist and all-round PR legend Andrew Bloch had something to do with it, once again demonstrating his position as the most connected man in PR.

Good on ya Rich, although we both know a good PR gong from me counts for far more than the £m’s you got for the sale.