10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad PR - Monday 18th June 2018

Happy England's-first-game-in-the-World-Cup-day everybody, and you will either be - like me - overwhelmed with excitement, or completely fed up of round the clock football. I'm taking a look at the week's good and bad PR and, you guessed it, it's a World Cup special.

Good PR

Football fans and non-football fans alike will remember the Iceland national team after they famously knocked England out of the 2016 Euros, a result this nation will find hard to live down. Iceland secured another fantastic result over the weekend, drawing their first ever World Cup finals game against Argentina.

Using good initiative, Iceland Foods took the opportunity to take a well-humoured dig at their competitors, tweeting other supermarket chains asking them how many points they have at the World Cup; great stuff.

Marketing around the World Cup can be difficult for brands, as without the official go-ahead from FIFA you can't make any mention of the World Cup, Russia 2018 or even the England team.

Mobile brand Three managed to swerve the copyright infringements with a cheeky rebrand, adding three lion emojis to their store fronts, so that it reads 'Three lion emoji lion emoji lion emoji', showing their support for the boys without stepping on FIFA's toes.

The final World Cup related good PR from the week, comes from League Cup sponsor and energy drink moguls Carabao. In an attempt to promote greater representation and inclusivity in football whilst combating sexism, Carabao have launched a campaign named #wearefemalefans.

It's based on the premise that female fans are unfairly represented in the media, with most images of fans at matches being that of men. The only images of women attending football matches are overly sexualised and unrepresentative of the wider population.

With this in mind Carabao teamed up with 'This Fan Girl' photography project to take five pictures of diverse female fans at an England game, and encouraged social media users to share their own, using the #wearefemalefans hashtag.

Bad PR

On to the bad PR now, and my first example surrounds female football fans as well, but is much less of a feel good story.

In a supposed attempt to encourage women to get into the World Cup fever, Mexican underwear company Vicky Form have released a pair of pants that vibrate whenever a goal is scored during the World Cup.

In what was certainly a risky move by the company, the underwear was unveiled in an advert with a couple watching a football match, and a woman in lingerie gets into the game because of the vibrating knickers.

Vicky Form has come under fire for the idea, with many branding them sexist for suggesting women don't naturally like sport, and have to be sexually incentivized to be interested at all.

Royal Mail have come under some flack this week, after they announced that delivery drivers were forbidden from having England flags on their vehicles, as they caused a hazard.

Whilst this news probably delighted a section of the population, many have called the act unnecessary and unpatriotic, preventing the drivers from showing their support.

My final example of bad PR comes from Patrice Evra, whose ban on kicking a fan comes to an end during this month.

However, this PR slip-up came in the studio as a pundit, not as a player, during analysis of Costa Rica's opening game. He shared the studio with Eni Aluko, who has made 102 appearances for the England national team.

Aluko offered some expert analysis on the Costa Rican team to Patrice Evra's apparent surprise; the former Manchester United player applauded her after the insight.

Evra has been branded as sexist, his surprise and mock applause at Aluko's insight leading many to say that he was patronising the Juventus forward and that he should be sacked.