Good PR of the week

I love it when big brands do something out of the ordinary and this week Sainsbury's gets the first nod for Good PR courtesy of its ruddy lovely response letter to a three-and-a-half-year-old girl, that went viral quicker than you can say "mention Twitter to inflate a story's value".

Lily Robinson wrote to Sainsbury's to ask why tiger bread is called "tiger bread" and not in fact "giraffe bread", as it looks more like a giraffe. Sensible question if you ask me. Sainsbury's customer manager, Chris King, was forced at gun point by the PR team* took the time to reply to the letter and even chucked in a few quid via a voucher.

Somehow the whole story got online and before you know it, we were all cooing over how lovely those nice people at Sainsbury’s are. When I mentioned this story to my wife (@Jilltovey) she told me about the time when she, aged 8 or 9, wrote to Smarties to ask them why they had the answer and was sent a curt reply telling her it was "just a marketing slogan". My, how times have changed now we live in the social media age.

I mention the following story because, according to @TwtTimesTop it was the hottest topic. We all know it was a spoof but still, great PR for Sean Connery. A fake letter, allegedly dictated by my favourite James Bond, telling Steve Jobs where he could stick his offer of taking part in an Apple advert hit the web and (to the surprise of the Daily Telegraph) out trended Wimbledon on Twitter.

It has done Sean Connery no harm at all.

Bad PR of the week

You all expect me to mention the Duke Nukem story don't cha? Well, I ain’t. Personally, I think it was only made into a big story ‘cos of the Twitter factor, ie, mention Twitter and everyone jumps on board. If you do want to read about it, here you go.

Anyhoo, Bad PR this week goes to Roger Ebert. No, I had never heard of the chap either. Apparently he is an American film critic and screenwriter (God bless Wikipedia) and this week he decided to Tweet negative comments about drink driving in connection to the death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn, even though the toxicology reports were not back.

Internet fan sites and international media, along with mums from around the globe all collectively shouted "if you cannot say anything nice, don't say anything at all", albeit some said it in a slightly fruitier way.

Ebert has now grasped a size-6 shovel and is trying to dig his way out of the brown smelly stuff with comments like "probably too quick to Tweet" and all that, but I think can safely say that he has just written off his chances of winning any type of MTV award.

Just to finish off, I felt I should mention something to do with the Mili-"bland" Brothers and their mum coming out to try and stop their alleged warring, but you know what, I am soooo bored of that story I thought I would give it the swerve.

See you next time you crazy cats.

*sorry for being cynical

Have you seen any Good or Bad PR? Contact Andy by emailing Andy@10yetis.co.uk or by Tweeting @10Yetis throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.

Good and Bad PR is a feature on the blog of 10 Yetis PR Agency.