Good and Bad PR: Stolen Kit Kats, Uber's sunbed, sacked Waitrose worker and NASA & Nutella

We had a week off but I am back now. The time away coincided with missing all of the April Fools stories. I am not too sad about that if I am honest. What I will say, though, is that the agency Umpf deserves an exclusive award for the effort they put into their AFD campaigns. I salute you.

Let’s get to it.

Stolen Kit Kats, hidden PR campaign? Maybe

Long suffering social media followers of mine will have been bored/flooded by my deluge of Kit Kat theft related content. The industry appears to be split on this one. Was it an April Fool’s Day PR story that accidentally landed too early, or was it genuine?

It doesn’t really matter, but what I will say is that either way, Kit Kat/Nestlé have played a blinder. From the moment that I went public with my suspicions, I was immediately hit with insider information – to the point that it felt coordinated. I have nothing but respect for the comms team for the way they handled the entire campaign.

It also gave brands the chance to have some fun with it, and it was great to see. Kit Kat: I salute you, and you are a more than worthy winner of the first Good PR of the week.

Uber turns sunbed wars into smart plug

I love this story from Uber. They have transformed some form of sunbed towel into an electronic charging device. It plays on the sunbed wars story and harnesses the rare sunny weather we are getting right now in the UK.

I once tried a very similar campaign with a hamster wheel that goes in your pet’s cage. Sadly, it never saw the light of day because a dull engineering type told the client that it would have taken a hamster approximately 26 years to power up a single iPhone. Given the average hamster only lives for three years, it was deemed a no-go.

Anyway, Uber has had far more success. Even the snooty advertising media seemed to love it and write it up in their masses. Huge win for Uber and a lovely story to boot.

Sacked Waitrose worker offered job by Iceland

The sacked Waitrose worker story has been everywhere this week. I am going to put it out there: I am on the fence with this one. I can see how it would be an open PR goal for a brand to come in and offer a role to scoop up the positive headlines, but I feel there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Maybe this comes from my own experience of PR’ing a retail outlet, but something feels a bit off with how the guy came to be dismissed in the first place. I have no insider information, and I am not making any outlandish allegations, but I don’t think we have heard the last of this one.

Waitrose would have been very twitchy about this situation given its recent media missteps when it comes to employees. I am referring to ASDA taking the praise for hiring an autistic worker who was let go by Waitrose after years of volunteering. This would have made them triple check they were doing the right thing by letting go of the person now being pursued by Iceland.

The brand is also stuck in a hard place as it can’t reveal the finer and wider details of the dismissal. All very murky. Still, bad PR by association for the supermarket giant.

NASA shoots Apple, Nikon and Nutella into new brand high

NASA has had a corker of a week in the media. I have seen them on the BBC every day since their rocket around the moon took off. The space geeks were getting so much positive publicity that they clearly decided to share the love.

Nikon got heavy praise for the pictures that were being taken by the astronauts, as did Apple thank to its iPhone 17 Pro being used for the more candid snaps. Finally, Nutella made its entrance as the toast spread of choice for the space crew as it silently, but effectively (thanks to gravity), floated past one of their heads in a media interview.

Canon, Marmite and Samsung are said to be livid at missing out. Great PR for NASA and the three mainstream brands, who also made media appearances.

Jaecoo shrugs off snooty comments from the old money brigade to top car-buying charts for March

I am not really into cars, which is something I should probably not admit given I launched Carwow in a former life. That being said, I do have social media and I do recall all the Land Rover fan-types sharing videos of the new style Land Rover Defender outperforming the Jaecoo 7 in many off-road trials.

Jaecoo has had the last laugh. Its Jaecoo 7 has topped the list for best selling cars in the UK for the month of March (2026). It has not just edged into the lead either, it has outsold its nearest rival (the Ford Puma) by nearly 1000 vehicles. Land Rover has no vehicle in the top 10.

The Chinese designed car is affordable and aimed squarely at the more cost-conscious Chelsea Tractor brigade. The marketing is working. Great PR for the SUV market's (relatively) new entrant!