10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad Public Relations- Tuesday 15th May 2012

May 15th 2012

Hello,

Shaun here with today's 10 Yetis Good & Bad PR Awards.

Good PR

Today's Good PR award goes to Virgin Atlantic, which, despite attracting some bad press from 'anti-noise campaigners', has made most of the national papers today for its announcement that passengers are soon going to be able to make calls on planes.

Virgin Atlantic has confirmed today that it is to become the first British airline to permit calls on-board flights. It claims that passengers flying on the London - New York route, on Virgin's A330 Airbus, will be able to make calls, send and receive text messages, send emails and have web access via GPRS.

This is great news for those travelling for business, as well as anyone else who needs to keep up-to-date with what's going on whilst on a long transatlantic flight. However, as the mobile phone base station is actually located on the plane, it does mean that all mobile phone usage is controlled by Virgin Atlantic and charged accordingly; £1 per minute to call and 20p to send a text.

Virgin Atlantic says that this new service is targeted at 'business travellers needing to make an urgent call to the office or for people wanting to get a message home.' We say bravo them!

Bad PR

Today's Bad PR award goes to Tesco, which has left its store managers out of pocket by cutting bonuses by 80%. The supermarket giant last month announced a 1% drop in annual profits from its UK stores to £2.5bn, yet it's denied that it's in trouble.

Reports out today claim that nearly 5,000 senior store managers at Tesco have been 'left outraged' after being told their annual bonus will be cut by around 80%. The news was broken to the staff by letter from their boss Phil Clarke last week, warning them that their 'annual performance-based rewards would be severally reduced following a dire year'.