10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad PR - Tuesday 31st July 2018

This week we’ve got Alicia Turner, sports journalist undergrad from the University of Gloucestershire, in with us to learn a little about the world of PR. She’s written this week’s good and bad PR for us all to read…

Over the course of the weekend there has been lots of good PR and very little bad PR, which is always great to see and slightly reassuring.

Good PR

Thomas Cook have announced their decision to stop selling tickets to SeaWorld and other marine parks after 90% of customers said they were concerned with animal welfare. Yay!!

Scientific research has allowed the company to come to the decision that they will not be associated with any marine parks who keep orcas (killer whales) in captivity.

Overall, 29 attractions have been cut after Thomas Cook announced their new welfare policy 18 months ago - fantastic PR!

Let’s hope that other holiday agencies follow Thomas Cook’s lead and that animal welfare will be taken more seriously.

Moving onto PR in sport: one of our GB hockey players, Sam Quek, has had her say on women being sexualised in sport - a very ‘hot’ topic circling media at the minute.

Apart from playing hockey, Sam is also a swimwear model, a job which the media pounce on to sexualise when it comes to women in sport.

In Rio, during the 2016 Olympics, a newspaper had done a bio on each player. Sam’s occupation was ‘swimwear model’ with a photo of her husband who owns a property company. Despite that, Sam has a degree and achieved her first international cap at the age of 18! It was as if the newspapers turned their heads on her occupation, because the other players had ‘doctor of nutrition’ by their names.

Awareness was raised when she talked about how the school dropout rate from girls playing sport is extremely high. It is important that young girls understand that you can be sporty and glamorous all at the same time!!!

The point being made is that to be a successful sport woman you do not have to take your clothes off to become recognised or to have financial gain in an attempt to compete with the financial standard male athletes have set.

Bad PR

Bottles of Trop50 Multivitamins (basically a healthier version of Tropicana) have been taken off the shelves in supermarkets, such as Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, due to the bottles ‘fermenting naturally.’

Tests have found that drinking the juice will not cause serious health problems, but it will taste sour and fizzy.

The bottles that have fermented early will appear bloated and may contain a layer of sediment in the liquid.

However, the bright side is that if you find your bottle in this state you can return it to the store and get a full refund of £2.50.