Hello and welcome along to my little part of PR land. For regular readers, I’m sorry. For those new to these parts; I am a very old comms man who worked in-house for some of the largest companies in the world before going agency side. This column is my take on the good and bad PR from the last seven days.

Off we go.

Knight Rider is down

The prestigious first good PR slot of the week goes to the RAC. The heroes of the highways have highlighted a very serious motoring issue: those idiots with automatic high beam (ABH) technology in their cars.

Apparently 5% of UK drivers no longer drive at night at all because of the issue of vehicle headlights being too bright. I am laying the blame firmly at the door of the car makers. I have driven cars with ABH tech – they have all been rubbish, and too slow to go back down to normal beam when another car is approaching.

The report found that 25% of drivers now drive less at night because overly bright lights in the rear view mirror are causing issues. As someone who spends most of their evenings ferrying (my own) children to various sports clubs, it does seem to have gotten worse in the last few years. Well done to RAC for shining a (dimmed I hope) light on the issue.

Put your Portuguese man o’ war away

Portugal has had enough of your saggy bodies being put on display. The resort of Albufeira has outlined plans to fine people who wander round the streets in swimwear.

Before you start to accuse the town elders of going a bit over the top, it is worth remembering that the last few times the area was put on the social media map, it was for not so good reasons.

A British stag-do (always is) danced naked in a bar and then street. In a separate incident, a video went round the web of a couple indulging in a sex act on the streets.

The announcement is a great piece of strategic comms for Albufeira. The fine is still at the consultation stage, but the news has spread far and wide. Most importantly the BBC covered the story. Given that most expats use BBC to keep up with what is going on at home, it will have hopefully done the job.

Bad PR for the stripping muggles of the British variety, great comms by the Albufeira PR team.

Keep miserable and carry on

You may not be surprised to hear that I am firmly in the camp of “oh do f-off” with this next story.

Starbucks has had a torrid time of late. Not making enough for its shareholders and hiring in a new CEO, who faced a somewhat charmless brand as a result of cost-cutting measures. In steps to rectify that, the new CEO attempted to bring some love back into the brand.

Idea one; let’s try and put a motivational, inspirational or nice message on your cup – such as, “you are amazing”, “what a legend you are” and “you will go on and have a great day” – alongside your name, obviously.

It has already started over in America, and if you have ever visited or worked with an American then you will know… [Andy’s emotive sentiment towards America’s trademark culture of positivity was redacted here].

But, rumour has it that some of the positive marketing leaked over to the UK early so a few stores tried it, probably without permission. It triggered an avalanche of audible groans in the media. Even the mighty FT got on board by penning an op-ed piece questioning modern marketing methods.

You must feel for Starbucks. How dare it try to be nice to people or give someone a little boost during their day. That being said, it does demonstrate once again that a one-size-fits-all approach, even to nice things, doesn’t work in every country. Thank God they didn’t try this in Scotland. Could you imagine the reaction?

A Chase to the top

An American brand that is smashing its marketing over here is Chase Bank. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) commissioned its annual survey into which banks the muggles love the most, and for the first time in its history of operating in the UK, Chase Bank came out top.

This is no mean feat, especially when you consider it only opened to us Brits in 2021. Up until this year, Monzo and Starling had been leading the way. Not any more though.The traditional banks may have worrying times ahead. Lloyds was the first of the legacy banking brands to finish in the top 10, while Royal Bank of Scotland came last.

It just goes to show that consumers are seemingly resonating more closely with the modern banks’ messaging. You can fully understand the quandary legacy banks are facing; do they stick with the stiff-upper-lip style brand approach that reinforces security and credibility, or try a more fun approach?

With such a diverse customer demographic; it is always going to be hard to please everyone. Great PR for Chase Bank.  

Lidl did they know, they were a viral sensation

The supermarket industry is more mature in terms of the young upstarts versus the traditional UK brands. Lidl and Aldi have not just taken on the likes of Tesco and Asda, I would argue both have comprehensively won the cheaper price messaging war.

This has been done through consistent communications, innovative marketing and true underdog competitiveness. One example came from Lidl this week. 

Good and Bad PR's sponsor, Carma, enlisted its enterprise business development manager, Ryan Boulter to talk through the impact of Lidl's move to TikTok. See his reaction below:

It announced that it is the first UK supermarket to sell via TikTok. The announcement felt big and gave yet another “we were the first” badge.

In reality, it was not really an exciting story. It is a small, protein product focussed, range but it did have a charity donation angle that will have helped convince newsdesks to give it a write up. The facts behind a “we were first” story don’t really matter. Lidl was the first.

Great PR and strategic comms move by Lidl. The legacy supermarket brands will be annoyed that they didn’t think of deploying a TikTok shop first.

KFC rebranding to TFC?

This last story feels like one of those satirical comms department videos that we all get served on TikTok from the awesome CommsCreatives account (nothing to do with me but worth a follow).

You know, the kind where the PR team were briefed at the last minute and not asked for their thoughts until it was too late?

Kentucky Fried Chicken is moving its HQ to Texas. But, Texas Fried Chicken does not have quite the same ring to it.

The corporate line is so it can better align its HQ services alongside the wider portfolio of brands that it owns, including Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

In another announcement, that does feel like a cynical ploy to quell the eventual calls from Kentuckian muggles for it to be rebranded from K to T, it is leaving some functions operational in Kentucky.

The aligned services line was quickly squashed by American media, which collectively pointed out that the move was most likely because Texas is far more financially-friendly to businesses than the state of Kentucky is.

Unusually confused PR for KFC.