Good PR

Royal bathers
It seems that any old shit that vaguely relates to the Royal Wedding has got pick up this week… my personal favourite wedding tat and my first example of Good PR is the Meghan and Harry matching swimsuits. Available here. Big kudos to Bags of Love for the global coverage that this product has generated. If you want a ginger nether-region, but don’t have the time to grow one, go for the Harry! Seriously though, Google the coverage that this product has had so far and you will swoon with admiration. A classic example of a simple-to-execute, product-PR campaign. I am giddy with admiration.

Heathrow’s best
Next up and slightly more important for future generations of Earth dwellers, Heathrow Airport. It also gets the Good PR nod, courtesy of its campaign to salute the cleanest and quietest airlines that grace its landing strips. It also shames the dirtiest and noisiest metal-birds of the sky. Scandinavian Airlines System is the cleanest and quietest and EgyptAir is the dirtiest and noisiest. The airport updates the league table every quarter and you can see how some airlines have upped their game to try and rank higher.

A for Ant 
A final well-done goes to Ant offa Ant and Dec fame. He has been pictured alongside his long-term sidekick, out of rehab and rumoured to be coming back to our screens later in the year. I am a big fan of the duo (as is “the internet” according to all the positive comments on social media) and I think the entertainment world is far better off with him in it. A Lazarus, but well deserved, recovery from a tricky crisis comm’s situation.

Bad PR

Off the tracks
Onto the gentle kicks and first up is Virgin and Stagecoach who are, allegedly, no longer able to keep up the payments on the East Coast Mainline, resulting in it being, temporarily, renationalised. As someone who has worked in this industry, things are never as clear as they seem and there have no-doubt been lots of behind-the-scenes discussions between government departments and other rail franchise owners to try and get a new operator lined up fast. Stagecoach was the first to put out a statement regarding this and as we all know, Virgin ain’t no PR fool so I very much expect it to come out all guns firing.,

This story is going to shunt on (pun intended)

Bank discredit
Finally, over to the Bank of England and the deputy governor Ben Broadbent. In a moment of madness (my words, not his), he described the UK economy as entering a “menopausal era” during a Telegraph interview. He went on to say the UK economy is one of many global economies that are "past their peak, and no longer so potent". Ouch. Over in the BoE press office you can only imagine how quickly the “media storm” alerts started flooding in from The Twitter and wider monitoring channels.

What baffles me is that he was either not chaperoned by a senior PR professional during the interview, or why the PRO who did attend did not pull the classic “these are not the droids you are looking for” Jedi mind trick to get that element of the interview shut down or canned off. A great result for the Telegraph!

Written by Andy Barr, head of agency 10 Yetis
Seen any good or bad PR lately? Want to send over your own ideas, or maybe some abuse?
You can find me on Twitter, @10Yetis.