As the media world enters into a Black Friday/Cyber Monday frenzy, enjoy a moment of calm with this week’s waddle through the world of Good and Bad PR.

Amazon wins, sort of

Amazon gets the first spot this week for ‘disappointing PR’. Where is its usual big yearly Black Friday domination story? Regular readers will know that I look forward to the angle Amazon pushes out that doesn’t reference Black Friday at all, but ensures it is still dominating the news cycle.

My favourite will always be the drone deliveries from a few years ago, but I have droned on about that enough. This year, Amazon is still all over the news ahead of the big shopping day, but for all the wrong reasons.

Amazon workers across 20 territories announced a protest on working conditions during the peak festive shopping days. Global media has picked up on the story. And with Google’s known hit and miss approach to correctly judging if a story is positive or negative, the write ups, even though they are not painting the brand in a positive light, will help its SEO. You see, Amazon wins, even when it loses.

 Wendy’s gets spicy

A US brand that is enjoying positive media over here for all the right reasons is Wendy’s. It has announced a major growth surge, albeit in a typical corporate-comms approach of: go big on the headline, go small on the detail.

The headline that almost all of the media stories went with was that Wendy’s is planning to open 400 new restaurants across the UK. The detail that backed that up was sketchy to say the least.

Of that 400 figure, so far only 11 sites have been identified. No timeframe has been set for the other 389 sites. This cynical columnist is old enough to remember that Wendy’s once before had a strong foothold in the UK but in the end canned off the whole UK version of the chain because of the cost of land and supply materials.

The PR in me though can recognise when a brand has played a blinder and announcing 400 new restaurants certainly dominated the UK business news cycle as a rare glimmer of good news under the current Labour climate. Nice one Wendy’s.

Whilst I am praising American fast-food brands, I doff my cap to Dave’s Hot Chicken. A US brand that sells, erm, hot chicken.

Whilst not quite on the same scale of Wendy’s PR they used a slightly different approach to get the headlines here. Dave questioned if us Brits can’t cope with the spiciness of his chicken. Sigh, it worked. The media shouted about the first UK restaurant opening in London and got them far more column inches than a single new restaurant opening probably deserved.

Oh, dairy me

It is not all doom and gloom for the British food industry though. An investigative report by the BBC has revealed that British dairy produce is so sought after by the rest of the world that the criminal underworld is taking interest.

It turns out that Neals Yard, who lost tonnes of its cheese in an elaborate theft earlier in the year, is not the only dairy victim. On the run up to last Christmas a trailer containing £50k of cheese (the equivalent of one small basket at a Waitrose food court) was targeted at a motorway service station in Worcester. And who can forget the breaking news in Cornwall this week that 12 bottles of milk were stolen from outside a school. Ok, so the last one is a bit small-fry compared to the others.

The war in Ukraine, so often blamed for nearly all of the UK supply chain price increases, is also getting a mention. British dairy produce (cheese) and French wine (le sigh) are allegedly the two most smuggled luxury items into Russia since trade embargoes were set in place.

We may get mocked for the standard of our cuisine, but our ingredients are a global sensation. Great PR for British dairy farmers.

Back to work

Sticking with the food theme, McVities of baked snacks fame piled the pressure onto Labour this week. After the British Retail Consortium did a mass signed letter complaining about the NI increase, McVities CEO waded in and took the biscuit with his announcement.

The company no longer considers the UK a positive place to do business. Before you all stock up on Hobnobs, it's not withdrawing products from the UK, but won’t be making any big machinery or asset purchases until opinion changes.

This comes in the same week as another think-tank said that Labour's drive to get people back to work was contrasted by their NI increase that is putting off employers from hiring more staff. With the election petition that is also floating around against Labour, it has been another tough week in the media for the Government.

Crypto gets a boost

One unlikely area of economic positivity this week came from the oft-criticised Crypto sector. The Financial Conduct Authority has found that 12% of the UK now holds some form of crypto based asset. The average value of the assets being held by Brits has also risen from around £1.6k to £1.8k.

Awareness of the sector also increased from 91% of the UK to 93%. It is some unusually positive news for the industry, especially at a time when many crypto brands continue to be dogged with pump and dump stories. With the FCA also looking to step up its approach to regulating the sector it offers a welcome opportunity for crypto brands who are looking to improve their reputation.