10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad PR – Monday 21st October 2019

It’s my turn to bring you this week’s good and bad PR, so I hope you are ready for some goodens!

Good PR

Companies and brands are doing all they can to cut down on plastic waste and it looks like John Lewis and Waitrose are jumping on the bandwagon, by no longer putting plastic toys in their Christmas crackers from 2020. Instead, their crackers will be filled with toys made from recyclable materials and no longer use plastic glitter.

John Lewis has even gone a step further by telling customers to ‘fill their own’ Christmas crackers which already accounts for every one in three packs that are sold.

This is great and lets people add a little personal touch to their crackers this Christmas but the cut-down on single-use plastic should definitely have been put into place earlier and hopefully more brands will be encouraged to do the same.

Guinness decided to turn some bad news into something funny following Ireland losing to New Zealand over the weekend. The team at Guinness decided to encourage people to drink their rival drink Carlsberg, whose brand colour is green, like the Irish Rugby kit and that they were done with the colour black which is the colour they represent, but is also the kit colour of the New Zealand rugby team. A clever bit of marketing and definitely turns a sore situation into a lighthearted bit of fun!

Bad PR

A US fast food chain has come under fire recently and forced to shut its newly opened store after protesters of the LGBT community protested outside the new store in Reading, after claiming Chick-fil-A’s ethos and moral stance goes completely against their values and that of the UK. The Oracle in Reading has since decided they will not be extending the chain’s initial 6 month lease, it looks like this chicken chain will be going downhill faster than they think.

Netflix password sharers, be warned! It has been said that Netflix are soon to scrutinise users who share their password with others by charging them extra for a sharing subscription. This is bad news for those account hogger’s out there who freely use other people’s accounts without a charge or care in the world. This could either lose Netflix a lot of custom in the long run, or it will simply get more people on board and paying for their own account.