Good and Bad PR: M&S, Aldi and EasyJet make us smile, PGA and Denmark…

Well hello there PR land. Here I am again, back in your eye-peepers with yet another missive about the good and the bad from the world of public relations.

It’s not just wine, it’s discount wine

Aldi and M&S continued their shit-housery-off this week courtesy of the posh retailer launching its spring/summer outdoor living range. One of M&S’s new garden furniture range featured the surprising prop; a bottle of Aldi wine.

Aldi calls out M&S advertising gaffe...

Eagle-eyed discount retailer Aldi spotted that a new advertising campaign by Marks & Spencer features two bottles of Aldi wine.

Read more...https://t.co/Ainf2XIQaH

— The Drinks Business (@teamdb) April 10, 2024

Before you could say “the prop buyer is being fired”, eagle-eyed Aldi fans had flagged the error up to the social media team and a new war of words began. To be honest I liked the response of both brands.

Aldi was its usual jokey self and M&S used humour in its own media reply. I really liked the line it used to The Telegraph, “Sometimes you regret asking guests to BYOB” - genuinely funny.

At the time of writing, no legal letters appeared to have been fired by either party. All in all, a jolly start to the week and Good PR for both brands.

EasyJet’s female pilot recruitment campaign hits new heights

Loved the Taylor Herring campaign for EasyJet this week. It balanced a female EasyJet pilot onto a billboard and prepacked some eye-catching images of muggles asking her questions.

The media loved it and as such, I love it too. It was everything we love in a PR stunt, simple, effective, and got great results. Hats off to everyone involved.

I hope that whoever had the joy of trying to make this happen and sorting the logistics of bolting a pilot’s chair halfway up a billboard gets a pay rise and an extra week off.

Glassdoor had a shocker last week. There are few media enquiries that strike as much fear into me as when a techcrunch writer gets in touch to ask you to “clarify a few things” about a client. This happened to Glassdoor last week.

Several users reported that their names had started appearing alongside content that they had written on the platform. If this wasn’t bad enough for the anonymous employment review site, it then fudged the media reply.

Instead of giving a considered reply, it fired out a blanket statement about data and always ensuring user content was anonymous. This clearly did not answer the specific questions being asked by the media and just triggered more enquiries and the story to spread wider.

Many employers will look at this situation and warm up their solicitors’ engines if names start accidentally appearing next to negative Glassdoor reviews, especially if any element is not factual or could be proven to be false. This would be a huge credibility blow to Glassdoor, but one that will have many PR agency owners celebrating.

PGA has put a hole in one of its own players

The PGA gets another Bad PR nod this week. The Masters is the jewel in the crown of its golf calendar. This is the chance for the PGA to distance itself from all the LIV Golf drama and focus on the noble sport of golf.

The problem is that it appears to have truly drained one of its prize assets, Rory McIlroy. The Netflix documentary Full Swing Series 2 gave the first indication that the PGA bosses had relied too heavily on Rory McIlroy to fight its cause against the LIV Golf brand war.

His reaction to the news of the merger, of which he had no advance warning, clearly left him deflated, especially as he had spent a year fighting the PGA cause. All of a sudden, he was expected to let that go.

The whole saga had clearly affected his own golf game, something he alluded to in the documentary. So when he appeared at The Masters pre-tournament press conference he was never going to be his usual charismatic and chirpy self and this is where the PGA should have tried to protect him. It didn’t.

It has not worked hard enough to protect its prize asset. Instead, it fell to Tiger Woods to stick up for his buddy and make headlines about him predicting Rory could win.

Danes dispute Cook’s bringing home the bacon

By now, everyone is aware of Russ “Hardest Geezer” Cook’s feat of running the length of Africa. Sadly, everyone is now also aware that Danish ultrarunner, Jesper Kenn Olsen, claims that he did it before him, back in 2010.

So Russ cook is running the whole length of Africa for charity. The first man to do it. 12,000 miles ..

Hes broken. None stop. Feet look like pork scrathings.

So the “world runners association” have waited until the last day to tell him isn’t the first to do it ????????

Fuck. pic.twitter.com/p3kZRbwPT9

— Andy R ⚫️⚪️ (@Andy_rs3r) April 6, 2024

The World Runners Association (WRA) took it upon itself to rubbish Cook’s claims that he was the first to do this. Shock horror, Olsen just so happens to be on the board of this organisation.

The WRA claim it put a statement out under the remit of “it’s just a fact-checking thing”, but it has certainly left a sour-note on Cook’s achievement. What an achievement it was as well, not just the endurance side but also the fact he raised nearly £1m for charity.

He would have undoubtedly raised more money via the media appearances that came after the race, and these have now probably been reduced thanks to the WRA dispute and statement.

Further evidence that Denmark may not be the nice, Lego building, Carlsberg brewing Scandi country that we thought it was.

Got it right or wrong? I don’t care but do let me know, over on The Twitter/X @10Yetis.

Written by Andy Barr, owner of 10 Yetis Digital. Seen any good or bad PR lately? Abuse and contradictory points welcomed over on The Twitter @10Yetis or andy@10Yetis.co.uk on email