Good PR

There has been some inspiring PR recently …

Gold Friday

First, there was some sort of glitch on the Amazon system so when lots of Black Friday goodies were returned, instead of going back to the depot, they were delivered to 22-year-old Robert Quinn. Being a good human being, he chose to contact Amazon about this, to which it initially said that people must be gifting him these items.

As he didn’t know these people, he doubted it, but left it. When even more items were delivered, he chose to contact Amazon again, when they then realised there was a system glitch. Robert has so far received 51 items, ranging from 3D TVs, to Xbox One games and buggies. For its error, Amazon has let Robert keep the goodies, of which he’s going to donate some to charity and sell the rest to fund his trip to Bruge (as well as raise funds for a cannabis grinder that he’s designing – this is an odd one, but okay …).

Messy man

Today’s good PR also has to go to Yolanda Bogert and Guy Kershaw in Brisbane, Australia, for the way they dealt with their daughter coming out as a transgender man, Kai.

The couple gave birth to Elizabeth in 1995 and shortly after put a birth announcement into their local paper. Nineteen years later they printed a retraction in order to correct their mistake and acknowledge and publicly accept Kai’s decision to live his life as a man.

The retraction read: "In 1995 we announced the arrival of our sprogget, Elizabeth Anne, as a daughter. He informs us that we were mistaken. Oops! Our bad. We would now like to present, our wonderful son – Kai Bogert. Loving you is the easiest thing in the world. Tidy your room."

This is fantastic! It was printed in the birth section of the newspaper, which is far better than it initially coming out as a story within the newspaper, and secondly it ended with a joke. No doubt Kai was initially embarrassed, but I’m sure he is overcome with joy and love for his parents.

The newspaper clipping has gone viral and hopefully will lead to transgender people feeling as though they too can come out and live the life they feel comfortable with, as well as helping others to understand and come to terms with those they love who find themselves in the same situation.

Bad PR

Lighter Welch

Fair play to Denise, she’s lost a lot of weight and looks incredible for it. However, LighterLife has pushed out a social media advert highlighting that Denise lost two stone over two months, implying that others could do the same.

Complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Agency who agreed that it was unhealthy to lose so much weight over such a short space of time, which led to the advert being pulled. Admittedly, it can still be found on Facebook, but I don’t imagine that will last long.

Obviously LighterLife is upset that its advert has been pulled, particularly when it appears it’s the diet that made Denise lose so much weight, but it’s wrong to convince people they too can lose two stone over just two months. Denise also gets bad PR for commenting that the officials at the ASA and watchdog “need to get out more”.

Regardless of whether or not Denise genuinely lost the weight from the diet alone, or used her celebrity status to get herself a personal trainer, sudden weight loss can do serious damage to your body and it’s advisable to lose just a couple of pounds per week to remain healthy and have a better chance of keeping it off.

Written by Samantha Summers, 10 Yetis

Seen any good or bad PR recently, you know what to do, @10Yetis on Twitter or andy@10yetis.co.uk on email.