It may make you gag, but ice cream made from breast milk is a brilliant PR stunt. Meanwhile Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney prove why they should stick to playing football.

Good PR

Breast is best

I have two words for you this week: Breast milk.

We’ve all sat back and watched as a relatively unknown company, The Icecreamists, has made headlines quite literally the world over with its latest offering – Baby Gaga breast milk ice cream.

Whatever you think about the product itself, the very fact you’re forced to have an opinion is great PR in itself. Even if, like many, it makes you sick to your core.

The initial spate of coverage for the stunt was nothing short of brilliant. The company’s response to complaints from members of the public, and a subsequent investigation into the safety of the product, has been pretty good too. According to this article here, more than 200 mothers have stepped forward to donate breast milk for the ice cream, through a partnership with the website Mums Net.

Taylor Herring was behind the campaign, and with previous media exposure for the Covent Garden-based ice cream boutique including legal threats from the Sex Pistols, you can bet that there’ll be more to come.

Bad PR

Footballers benefit from Sweet FA

Short on fans of his public persona, you’d think Chelsea and England defender Ashley Cole would do everything he could to endear himself to the public that inevitably pay to watch him play. Shooting a 21-year-old intern on a placement at the club with an air-rifle isn’t the way to do it.

The rifle – which the press have described as the most powerful gun that can be owned in the UK without a licence – was discharged while Cole was “messing around” and the fact that it was exposed as an exclusive by The News of the World makes the whole issue look as if Chelsea tried to cover it up. Which, judging by the fact the victim, Tom Cowan, wasn’t taken to hospital, it did.

As rightly stated by Paul Coxon at Warwickshire County Council, the fact that there has been no press conference, no apology or even any publicised talk of action against Cole now just makes it look like you’re allowed to shoot somebody and get away with it. Provided you’re a professional footballer, of course.

Talking of lax laws with relation to footballers, Wayne Rooney has showed just what a pleb he really is by elbowing a player in the back of his head, in full view of TV cameras.  Surely this, with video evidence, would be acted on accordingly in both a legal and public relation sense, right?

Wrong. Rooney wasn’t so much as carded, and the FA won’t be acting to charge him for the off-the-ball incident, due to a ruling that the FA can’t overrule the decision of a referee unless he or she admits to making a mistake. And he hasn’t.

It’s interesting that both of these issues have arisen following great PR from on-field exploits for both players: Cole’s England Player of the Year accolade and Rooney’s recent wonder-shot.
 

Also in the running this week, as put up by Kirsty Henderson and Sam Hadadi at Willoughby PR: John Galliano’s sacking by Christian Dior. 

 Good and Bad PR is a feature on the blog of PR Agency 10 Yetis.