What a week for the world of PR. There’s much to pick out from the Trump show, but I will leave it to the more serious industry bigwigs to cover that off. Take the rhetoric and hate out of the campaign, and it has been a masterclass in what you can achieve when you have an eccentric, ego-driven, billionaire supporter in your camp.

Onwards.

This isn’t just leadership, its M&S leadership

Lord Stuart Rose, former M&S CEO and arguably the Lord of Retail, is probably one of the most successful graduates of the M&S management training program. Rose has led some of the biggest companies in the world, and has been around the corporate block a few times.

Last week, on social media he said the post-Covid work from home era set UK office productivity back by 20 years. It created quite the debate. In my new role as #1 (and favourite) employee of a new agency, I now work from home more than I ever have previously in my career. Is my productivity less than when I worked in an office? It is hard to say with any confidence.

I work longer hours at home, but I am more easily distracted. When I work from an office space, I am equally just as distracted. I agree with Rose that it is harder to train new staff in the WFH era. I would also say that work efficiency and/or productivity does take a dip as well.

One further example of an accidental productivity issue, that I am sure could be easily countered by those far smarter than I. I often have brain-fart moments. Something I should remember, given my nearly 30 years of experience, completely slips my mind. In the office environment I look up and ask the most stupid or obvious question, get the answer and move on. It takes seconds. I have seen this happen hundreds of thousands of times.

In the WFH era that same silly question needs to be written out. It has to be worded and framed correctly so that it doesn’t reveal you to be the fool that everyone secretly thinks you are.

It then needs to be put on whatever internal comms chat system you use and a reply needs to waited for. A seconds job suddenly becomes a minute’s job and times this by a large workforce and there is a single significant productivity issue right there.

Ben Lowndes of PR-industry-leader fame (and doing significantly better than I am at the PR industry Fantasy Football league this year) wrote a really considered response to the Lord Rose story on his LinkedIn, fighting the corner of the WFH generation. He is one of the clever people who you should really listen to, rather than my unhinged ramblings.

I’m not a cider drinker

A huge amount of time and planning goes into these columns you know. Stories evolve through the week and finding the right balance is often hard. At the start of the week, when I had to give my long-suffering editor a steer on what I am thinking about writing, Aldi was going to get Bad PR.

It lost its latest knock-off-cider case to Thatchers and it was going to be a poke from me. Surely the UK now knows what the German discount brands are all about and they don’t need to keep doing these awareness-driver brand-theft campaigns around ciders, caterpillar cakes and Uranus chocolate bars.

I digress. Then along came the news Aldi gave a market leading pay-increase to its employees. What a turnaround, Great PR for Aldi, I can’t drink cider anyway, so what was I ever doing, considering giving them Bad PR for something so trivial.

Industry outs Blue Monday for the marketing sham that it is

The PR industry deserves to give itself a mighty pat on the back this week. It successfully shunned the Blue Monday nonsense. Even the Digital PR crew gave it the swerve despite a few of them using it last year.

A long long time ago I myself hung a campaign around it, not fully understanding its heritage. Fortunately, the very kind Dr. Ben Goldacre gave me a jolly good, and very public, bollocking and I saw the error of my ways. Since that day, I have fought hard, along with many others, to point out how dodgy it is. The issue that we poor PR’s face though is that many a c-suite level CMO still lists it as a thing that can be used across newsletters, websites and public relations. As we know, they can be a hard breed to say no to without fear of consequence. They are the next ones that we need to convince.

 Who needs PR’s anyway?

The final Bad PR of the story of the week was between two industry situations. Neither were good. An industry mag whacking up its subscription fee to being outside of the grasp of the majority of people who want to actually read it, or a major brand successfully turning away from the loved and proven press release to get coverage?

The brand it is. Terry Chocolate Orange (better known as “it’s not Terry’s, it’s mine”) secured a massive media hit this week. They launched their rival to the Cadbury’s Cream Egg. A Terry’s Chocolate Orange, erm, orange-cream egg.

When stories like this land so convincingly I usually have a sneaky word with a journo who I know who has covered it and ask to see the press release. Imagine my fear, shock and horror when I found out that there was no press release.

My Secret Reach PLC reporter/informer revealed that a “fuck tonne” of freebies were dispatched around the regions to all and sundry. No release was needed, they let the product do the talking. And boy did it talk.

Now, I suspect that there may be the odd advertorial chucked in to sweeten the earned-media coverage, but is it wrong that I secretly love this approach?

One of my favourite sayings to long suffering PR folk who had the misfortune of working alongside me is that I hate press releases. They are formality that just causes a ball-ache. I have always felt that any PR who can get coverage without needing a press release is worth their weight in Bitcoin (see, my analogies are moving with the times).

Great PR for Terry’s, and I can confirm that with Type 1 diabetes (“The Proper One”™) confidence that I was not paid in product to say this. My postal address however, is available via DM.

Apologies for the longer than usual read. My rant about WFH took us somewhat off tangent. I love you all and care deeply about your feedback and thoughts.