10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad PR - Friday March 2nd 2018

Wishing you a very warm, safe & happy Friday in this gorgeous snowy weather – not so gorgeous if you aren’t a lucky Yeti like us and able to work from our sofas, half consumed by blankets and half-drunk mugs of hot chocolate. Anyway, to cheer you up if you’re stuck in a traffic jam or at your desk doing the workload of five colleagues who ‘didn’t make it in’, here’s today’s instalment of good and bad PR! Get ready to crave some serious junk food…

Good PR

It’s not often that we’re jealous of motorists stuck in queues of Northumberland traffic, but today is one of those days. A wonderful soul, dubbed the ‘heroic Greggs driver’ by the headlines, unloaded his van to dole out fellow travellers stuck on the road thanks to the beast from the East. Drivers’ frustrations were eased thanks to dreamy pick me ups in the form of cakes, doughnuts and other baked delights.

The drivers had been stranded for hours and were obviously very grateful, although Jon, the driver, noted that he hadn’t quite expected to end up walking quite so far along the A1. Needs must, Jon, needs must. Greggs to the rescue.

Bad PR

While Greggs is getting it all right, it’s junk food competitor Maccy D’s has definitely been less lucky – in fact, the brand is dealing with some rather nasty criticism thanks to one East London franchise. News reports claim that a disgruntled father is…. Especially disgruntled… after his daughter and her five friends were asked to take their food and go, and not permitted to eat indoors whilst wearing their school uniforms. Apparently the result of antisocial behaviour by other pupils of the school, the branch adopted a universal policy against people in the school uniform.

Of course, while most of us can understand how annoying pupils can probably be whilst high on after-school freedom and cheeseburgers, it’s not ok to tarnish everyone in a particular group due to the actions of a few and McDonald’s is rightfully receiving some negative attention today. A spokesperson has defended the action by saying they need to safeguard other customers; by tomorrow it will be yesterday’s chip, sorry French fry, paper, so I doubt the brand are sweating too much on this occasion, they probably have far bigger burgers to fry.