Well hello there, and well done to all those who survived April Fool’s Day. A part of me is very sad that, as a concept, it has died off. I was never that bothered about the more obscure ones, but I did like it when the likes of BBC and BMW had a stab.

I digress. Onwards to this week’s hits and misses from the world of Public Relations. A strong week for the food and snacks sector in particular.

Crème Egg for a Cadbury Win

As with much in the PR world, some campaigns are cyclical. The largest Easter Egg being one of the more common. Cadbury’s knows a thing or two about chocolate eggs and so it is no surprise to see it roll out a giant Crème Egg story.

It’s a tried and tested method. Create something massive and, taking care not to float it down the Thames for fear of snooty CIPR mob criticism, ping pics out to the picture desks. Cadbury’s created one that was, in its own words and a nice point of reference, the same size and weight as an emperor penguin.

The media lapped it up and a few of you sent the story to me. A few did mention that Cadbury’s didn’t say what was going to happen to the creation, which is going to be displayed at Cadbury World’s chocolate-making zone from April 7-27 . It would have been a nice ending if it was auctioned off to charity. I very much doubt, unless you want to be fast-tracked to Type 2 Diabetes, that you would want to eat it.

Just goes to show how demanding our sector is nowadays. Not good enough to get a dollop of amazing media coverage, there always needs to be an end story.

I am giving it a mighty Good PR to start the week off.

Tunnock’s Away!

Sticking with snack-based Good PR, Tunnock’s get upgraded to winning a great PR — not just good — for the next story, as does the RAF. What appears to make this story even better, is that neither of the two brands seemingly played any part in winning it.

The RAF Centre of Aerospace, run by civvies I am guessing, but based on a RAF base ran a cutting-edge science test. Record keepers discovered that Scotland’s second best export after Irn Bru was currently banned from being in the cockpit of RAF planes.

During the Cold War peak in 1965 it was reported that a Tunnock’s Tea Cake exploded mid-air and covered the RAF plane controls in sticky marshmallow. Upon landing, Tunnock’s was immediately put on the no-fly list.

The RAF Centre obviously has a soft-spot for the sticky treats and wanted to get them off the flying banned list. It carried out a scientific experiment to replicate the altitude issue, and were happy to report that no controls were ruined.

The British Forces Broadcasting Service (think BBC in 1940’s) watched the experiments and ran the story and it blew up (not literally) from there.

Here is the kicker though; Tunnock’s had no clue it was on a banned list, but put out a fun responsive statement. The official RAF comms team failed to see the fun of the story. It claimed there was no list of banned confectionery items, and that tests were not carried out in an official capacity. Jeez Louise, take a day off with your serious self.

I think the Army comms team would have smashed that story out of the park, using humour and professionalism. Chair Force 0, Tunnock’s and the BFBS 1.

£1k bet doesn’t wash with Scottish Water co-CEO

I mean, if you had made millions of pounds from the music industry, would you not spend all of your days annoying CEO’s of companies that you dislike? I know I would.

Feargal Sharkey of ex-undertones-frontman fame has said he will pay £1k to the charity of choice of the CEO of Scottish Water if the company boss drinks a glass of raw river water. The music-maestro made all the headlines this week, complete with a picture of him in a mod suit in front of a river.

The river in question, River Spey, had raw human waste pumped into it because of overflow spills. Apparently, there have been enough of these overspills to fill 12,000 Olympic sized swimming pools. That is a lot of human shit.

Sharkey is now an eco-warrior. and he has had enough. He is using his fame to draw attention to the issue, and it worked. Imagine the poor Scottish Water comms team when that phone call landed.

There has been no word if the CEO will take up the offer but I very much doubt it. To be complimentary to the water company in question. It did say the alternative to the waste water going into the rivers was that it flooded residential land, and when you put it like that, I think most communities would not care for that so much.

Still, Bad PR for Scottish Water and, once again, the UK water industry as a whole.

What Yam doing with the rubbish?

I am fortunate enough to have lived and worked in many major cities in the UK. I can safely say that, in my humble opinion, the work-ethic of the people of Birmingham is the highest I have ever experienced.

I lived there for a chunk of the formative years of my life and was based there during the early part of my in-house-PR career. Them Brummies, they work hard! They certainly deserve better than the current bin-lorry-saga that is blighting the city.

I feel it is being massively under-reported by the UK media, which is testament to the growing strength of the national Labour PR machine, who are keen for this story not to grow. The Labour comms team will be celebrating Trump and his crazy ways for dominating the national headlines.

My confusion with the comms messaging is there is absolutely no plan-B from the Government of the day. Drafting in refuse collectors from nearby cities such as Lichfield is simply not going to fix the issue. Birmingham is heading towards being declared a no-go-travel-zone unless the trip is vital, and the people deserve better. Who gets bad PR for this? The Labour PR machine, they should have swept in and done better.

Scientists in dire mess

Regular readers will start to grow bored of me mentioning Colossal Biosciences and its obsession with de-extincting dinosaurs. I didn’t know that de-extinction was a term until they came along.

After ripping them for the Woolly Mouse antics it claimed this week that it had de-extincted dire wolves.

For those who have not watched Game of Thrones, they are massive bloody wolves. They are nearly one quarter size bigger than your average massive wolf. Basically, you don’t want to come up against one at night.

The Colossal posse shouted about its success and the global media looked on with glee. Why is it falling on just myself to point out how badly this is all going to end up?

Anyway, a team of normal scientists have, thank the lord, come out and said this is rubbish. Colossal have not brought back dire wolves, they have just basically henched-up a Grey wolf using dire wolf DNA.

Hopefully, this shady science lot from Texas will be shut down for being absolute lunatics and leave dinosaurs where they should be, in the past. Bad PR, once again for Colossal Biosciences.