Good PR of the week

No doubt your Facebook and Twitter timelines have been covered in “no-make-up selfies“.

The media are stating that the #nomakeupselfie craze was started by teen-mum, Fiona Cunningham, in the comfort of her bedroom. She supposedly decided to set up a Facebook group encouraging people to take an image of themselves with no make-up on, tag female friends and challenge them to do the same, as well as encouraging them to donate £3 to Cancer Research UK where they could afford to.

Within 24 hours of the craze going viral over £1 million had been raised; within 48 hours over £2 million had been raised; and in less than a week £8 million has been raised.

This viral campaign wasn’t set up by any Cancer Research or Cancer Awareness charity, yet they’re over the moon with the results and have backed the campaign 100 per cent.

The campaign hasn’t remained within the UK either – it’s gone worldwide. Women all around the world, celebrities included, have been taking their make-up off and posting their #nomakeupselfie on Facebook and Twitter, as well as a screenshot of their text donating £3 to Cancer Research.

And we can't forget to congratulate the lads out there who decided to jump on to the craze with their make-up selfies (yes, lads have been putting make up on and donating), as well as the ever-so-tasteful cock in a sock!

This hasn’t just been good PR for Cancer Research and Cancer Awareness though – surprisingly it’s also been good PR for Unicef and Polar Bears...

Lots of charities are registered to the number 70099, and depending on which keyword you text depends on which charity you are donating to … Some smartphones have been “auto correcting” the word BEAT to BEAR, so when people have text BEAR to 70099 the system has seen this as a text for Unicef, same with the word “DONATION”.

Whilst this hasn’t equated to a rise in thousands of pounds worth of donations to Unicef (your text to them would prompt a member of staff/volunteer to give you a call to set up a subscription to adopt a polar bear), it is being sorted so that those thousands of pounds make their way to Cancer Research.

If you'd like to donate yourself, you can do so here. 

Bad PR of the week

I don’t know about you, but I’m shocked at the way a blonde lady was recently treated whilst walking through Cairo University campus in Egypt.

Men heckled her, followed her and even tried to rip her clothes off. Whilst I’m not entirely sure if this was a stunt or not, someone was able to capture a lot of this on camera – the video can be found here: 

And just in case the poor girl wasn’t annoyed enough about the situation as it was, the university dean, Gaber Nasser, was quoted saying: “This girl entered the university wearing an abaya (a loose cloak) and then took it off in the faculty, and appeared with those clothes that caused, in reality … the incident.” He then quickly went on to add: “The student’s mistake does not justify what the students did.”

This sounds as though he’s saying she deserved what she got because she chose to wear her outfit, even if he did contradict his statement by stating that it wasn’t justified.

To clarify, she was wearing a long-sleeved pink top and black jeans. Yes, the outfit was figure hugging and Egypt is one of the largest Muslim-majority countries in the world, but it’s slowly accepting Western ways.

UN Women undertook a study of women in Egypt in 2013 and the results uncovered that 99 per cent of women admitted to being harassed on a regular basis regardless of whether they were wearing a conservative Islamic veil or choosing to wear Western-style clothing.

This is bad PR for Cairo University – regardless of whether or not this kind of behaviour is the norm in Egypt. This video is showing all women how they will be treated if they attend, or even walk through, this university campus. No woman wants to be treated like that, and no woman then wants to be accused of it being her own fault. Also, tourists may be put off travelling to areas of Egypt for fear of being treated this way. Gaber Nasser could’ve dealt with this situation much better.

Sam from 10 Yetis here bringing you some good and bad PR from around the world. If you’d like to hear more of my ramblings, or love a good kitty tweet, you can find me over at @SamSummersPR.

Seen any good or bad PR recently, you know what to do, @10Yetis on The Twitter or andy@10yetis.co.uk on email.