Good PR of the week

Romantic burgers

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, businesses left, right and centre are beginning to implement their campaigns and stunts in the lead up to the big day. One that most definitely caught my eye this week came from a McDonald’s franchise in America, which is doing its part to help the more financially challenged amongst us this V-day.

An advert displayed in the window of the store in question invited local lovers to take a trip to the “restaurant” between the hours of 6:00pm to 8.00pm on 14 February for its third annual “candlelight dinner”. The happy (meal) customers will be greeted at the door by staff, who will seat them, take their orders and then deliver it to them at their tables. If that wasn’t romantic enough, musical selections for the evening will have been selected by none other than Ronald McDonald the clown!

The response to the ad has been overwhelmingly positive according to staff in the town of Southport, North Carolina, with many customers clearly keen to save themselves a few bucks this Valentine’s Day. Having said that, if my boyfriend tries the same trick, I will not be a happy lady!

Macho beer

Another very topical debate this weeks is the fact that that the Winter Olympics in Sochi are about to begin, with a lot of media stories focusing on the anti-gay laws that have been put in place by the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

In protest of the laws, a Scottish brewery has launched a “not for gays” beer in protest, and has even sent a crate of it to the Russian leader himself. The limited-edition “Hello, My Name is Vladimir” beer features a Warhol-esque impression of Putin wearing make-up on its label and the highly satirical “*not for gays” printed across the bottom of the bottle.

BRILLIANT OR WHAT?!

According to the co-founder of the brewery, the beer has been created as a protest against the Russian gay laws and to “hold up a mirror to discriminatory legislation signed off by Putin. The stunt has already had tens of thousands of tweets, and to make this campaign even more awesome, 50 per cent of the beer sales will go to charitable organisations that support oppressed minorities

Bad PR of the week

Tasteless tweet

After the tragic and untimely death of Academy-award-winning actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman on Sunday evening, many fans and fellow Hollywood stars took to Twitter to talk about the shocking death of the talented 46 year old, who was found dead in his Manhattan apartment after an apparent heroin overdose. While the majority of tweets paid their respects to the deceased actor and spoke of the tragic loss to the actors partner and children, one D-list actor decided to vent an entirely different opinion to his fans.

Jared Padalecki, who has appeared in popular TV series Gilmore Girls and currently stars in Supernatural, tweeted the following to his 1.2 million followers:

The tweet was understandably met with a barrage of criticism from fans of the troubled actor, who condemned the 31 year old for tweeting such an insensitive quote just hours after the news broke.

Padalecki hastily deleted his tweet and tried to defend his poor and tasteless choice of words, however he then began to talk about how he didn't think Hoffman's death was a tragedy in the same way that genocide or “articles I read in the paper” are.

Maybe just stay away from Twitter next time a similar opinion crosses your mind Jared?

Burning issue

Finally, a bit of bad media coverage for Apple this week after it emerged that a 14 year olds new iPhone 5C had EXPLODED in her pocket during a school lesson.

The girl, who needed to be hospitalised and treated for her severe burns, had just arrived and sat down when she heard a pop. Shortly after, smoke began to emerge from her pockets and her friends realised that the phone had caused her trousers to set alight.

The injuries sustained during the incident were described as moderate, but I’m betting she chooses a Samsung next time she goes phone shopping!

This week's GoodandBadPR was written by @laurenwilden. Got anything good or bad that you want to share? andy@10yetis.co.uk or @10yetis on Twitter.