Good day to you PRmoment readers, Lauren here, exec at @10Yetis. Today, boss-man Andy has given me the chance to write my own interpretation of this week’s winners and losers in the world of PR. If you feel compelled to do so, and don’t mind the occasional rant/F-bomb, please do take a trip over to Twitter and follow me @laurenwilden (shameless plug, but if you don’t ask you don’t get, right?)

Good PR of the week

Call me dead inside, but I’m just not that crazy about the John Lewis Christmas advert that EVERYONE in the country seems to be obsessed with this year. Don’t get me wrong, the 21-year-old Lauren loved the advert with the kid waiting to give his parents their presents last year, but the combination of the animated Disney-esque characters and Lily Allen singing a Keane song just aren’t doing it for the 22-year-old graduate Lauren (I graduated last week).



Having said that, you’ve got to give kudos to John Lewis (@johnlewisretail on Twitter), who this week used a social media misunderstanding to increase awareness of its advert by rewarding a bloke who just happens to share its brand name. Mr Lewis, of Blacksburg, Virginia, owns the Twitter name @JohnLewis, and has understandably been inundated with tweets regarding the Bear and Hare advert since it premiered last week.

Rather than ignoring the tweets or deleting his account, Mr John Lewis decided to implement some class A banter skills and reply to a few of the tweets accidently directed towards his account. My favourite response was to one tweeter who described their trip to @johnlewis as a mistake, as there were too many beautiful things inside. To this, the American replied: “My beauty is never a mistake. Of course, you may have been referring to the retail store. @johnlewisretail”. Mega-Lolz.

The decision to reward John Lewis, whom Buzzfeed has since described as the “the most patient and polite man on Twitter”, is simple, but so frickin’ effective it makes me wonder whether or not this may be the result of a very clever PR team over at John Lewis HQ.

Bad PR of the week

A double dose of bad PR now in the form of a MAJOR social media faux-pas from Kellogg’s, plus an unfortunate blog condemning a Tesco Express store that’s gone viral in the past week.

First up, the Kellogg’s company “cereally” messed up last week and caused Twitter outrage after it offered to exchange retweets for breakfasts to vulnerable children. At 1:00pm on Friday, the official Kellogg’s twitter account wrote “RT to #GiveAChildABreakfast. Breakfast clubs are fun and help kids get their breakfast so they can focus in class.”

Yep, this ACTUALLY happened.

The social media team at Kellogg’s were trying to promote its Give a Child a Breakfast campaign, but the stunt immediately resulted in the brand looking super tacky, not to mention heartless, as it attempted to take advantage of starving children for its advertising benefit. To make matters worse, the social media team broke the cardinal rule and deleted the tweet after receiving a barrage of criticism from disgusted followers.

I think what is ultimately so shocking about this story is that such a major global company can be stupid enough to make this kind of mistake as we near the end of 2013. Doesn’t it realise that offering charity for a retweet is just a massive no-go move? Lesson hopefully learnt.

Moving on, a pretty hilarious blog came to my attention this week that has seemingly given one Tesco store in London a bit of a headache.

The blog, was created by a disgruntled customer, annoyed with his local Tesco Express in Hackney. The anonymous shopper clearly decided that a letter of complaint or a nasty tweet just wouldn’t suffice, and decided to take to the magical world of Tumblr to vent his anger.

Material on the blog features images of gone-off produce, empty shelves, and a cracking snapshot of a “meal-deal” section full of Stella cans (stay classy, Hackney).

To be fair, the mystery blogger has announced that since the blog has gone viral, managers at his local store have apologised unreservedly for the state of the shop, and that they are taking the correct measures to rectify the “work in progress” situation.

I must admit I do love a story like this, as it goes to show the impact just one person can have with nothing but a computer and some determination to help them. Kind of makes me wish I’d carried on with my blog …

Got anything good or bad that you want to share? andy@10yetis.co.uk or @10yetis on Twitter