10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad PR - Monday 8th July 2019

The summer is now upon us and students up and down the country are breaking up from school, university and more. This week, and for a few weeks throughout the summer, we're fortunate to have Lucy Meecham Jones joining us; she's currently studying Marketing at Swansea university. Her first job was to write this week's good and bad PR... so grab a cuppa and dive on in!

Good PR

With the recent rise in independent and global supermarkets such as Waitrose introducing packaging-free trials into their stores in order to demonstrate the brand’s acknowledgment of the need to be kinder to the environment, Aldi have taken the plunge and gone one step further. The German supermarket chain has launched a campaign to replace all single-use carrier bags with biodegradable versions as of 1^st July 2019.

The compostable bags are being introduced in almost half of UK stores whilst the paper bags are being introduced in the remaining stores across the country. This trial period is to be assessed at the end of the month to evaluate which bag was more popular and therefore should become the permanent replacement.

These bags will help to reduce an estimated 1,300 tonnes of plastic that is produced by the company each year, which equates to about 33.3 million carrier bags. Alongside this, the store aims to reduce polystyrene and PVC, amongst other plastics, from its food range by the end of 2020 and reduce overall plastic packaging by 25% by the end of 2023.

In addition to this, Aldi has announced that they aim to introduce two more bags, including one made out of store waste and another made out of reusable cotton.

This is a perfect example of supermarkets battling it out to become the most environmentally friendly brand and poses the question of what will be the next initiative.

After the success of the plastic ban at the UK’s biggest music festival, Glastonbury experienced further PR success through Oxfam’s use of the festival to launch their Second-Hand September campaign. This campaign asks individuals to not buy new clothes for one month and favour second-hand alternatives instead.

Sheryl Crow, Lewis Capaldi and Billie Eilish were among the stars who donated items such as t-shirts and wellies, along with Kylie who donated a sun visor. Although perhaps not the most useful of items, Kylie’s donation acts to inspire younger generations to follow in her footsteps with donations and it helps to add a touch of glamour to previously frowned-upon second-hand fashion.

Alongside saving 47 million items of clothing from landfill each year, Oxfam aims to fight fashion poverty so that the world’s poorest people have access to clean water, sanitation and shelter.

There were three separate shops located across the festival where festival-goers could purchase second-hand clothing, and gain an insight into the charity’s mission.

Whilst serving as another aspect of good PR for Glastonbury festival, the global popularity of the festival means that Oxfam are able to extend their environmental and ethical messages to more global audiences, increasing their reach and therefore aiding the fight against fast fashion.

Bad PR

The fast-fashion retailer Missguided has come under fire in recent weeks due to its introduction of the £1 bikini to ‘celebrate 10 years of empowering women. The argument raised by shoppers here is that the lack of value that this bikini possesses means that it will be seen as a throwaway item that will end up of in landfill sites once the summer is over. This counters Oxfam’s Second-Hand September campaign and just adds to the 11 million items of clothing ending up in landfill every week.

The 85% polyester and 15% elastane product comes after the government’s rejection of the proposed 1p fashion tax, helping to reduce the environmental impact of fast fashion within the UK. At present, 300,000 tonnes of clothing is either burned or buried each year in the UK alone and the £1 bikini is arguably adding to this crisis.

Additionally, this low price of this bikini raises questions over how ethically it was made. The brand responded to this by claiming that they ‘absorbed the costs’ of manufacturing in order to gift customers with the bikini. However, the price of a product is usually reflective of the processes involved in production, suggesting that few ethical considerations were involved here.

What’s more, Missguided have just lost a law suit which will see them pay $2.7m to Kim Kardashian after the fast-fashion brand were found to be recreating her clothing, including custom pieces made for her (even those by her husband, Kanye). They definitely didn’t help themselves either; whoever runs their social accounts made a point of tagging Kim K in a post where the outfit had been ripped off and the model looked like Kim!