10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad PR - Tuesday 5th June 2018

Here’s the Good & Bad PR round up to cheer up your Tuesday. Enjoy!

Good PR

It’s got to be Love Island, the answer for everything on this sunny 5^th June. The country has Love Island fever. With no shortage of reality shows vying for space on our TV, it’s pretty impressive that Love Island manages to command so much attention and brands are jumping on board. The Love Island producers themselves are launching all kinds of related stories, including that they had more applicants than Oxford and Cambridge. After all, a big part of why we love the show is to despair at the state of humanity while we admire their seamless fake tans and flawless contouring… right? Just me?

Bad PR

There are some super questionable campaigns doing the rounds at the moment, with Lush and Mastercard both under fire and for good reason.

Consumers have been left completely stumped by a “SpyCops” campaign from Lush, apparently showcasing corruption in the UK police force and implying that Britons shouldn’t trust the boys in blue. The campaign comes in retaliation to a scandal involving undercover police officers infiltrating a group of activists. The police officers involved lived with the activists for years, some even had children with them, and then vanished without any warning once the operation was over.

Because Lush works closely with activists over issues such as animal testing and cruelty, the team wanted to showcase the issue. The way it was done, as part of a marketing campaign, has left consumers confused: while Lush has often been a political brand, suggesting that the police can’t be trusted has been argued to be a step too far.

The brand is currently standing by the campaign in the face of quite a lot of heat from the press and consumers alike, as well as notable MPs and the head of police, and has fired back arguing that their campaign is targeting the spy units only, and that they will not abandon the victims that were targeted by the operation. The campaign will divide opinion and its likely that only very politically minded, liberal and informed consumers will agree with it, and even those may not agree that they are clear enough in their criticism to avoid being mistaken for targeting all police, many of whom work hard to keep society safe. It’s a controversial one but, with the reputation Lush has for this kind of debate, it is consistent with their political messaging and unlikely to do much in the way of lasting damage.

Mastercard is also the subject of disgruntlement this week, having launched the offensive campaign, “goals for meals”. The company pledged to donate 10,000 meals to children in Latin America and the Caribbean each time that Messi or Neymar score a goal, from now until 2020. They’ve since pulled the campaign, after it backfired substantially and met with a huge backlash. Dicing with fate when it comes to starving children, and staking their hunger on football goals, is a disgusting move and has left us questioning how this was ever passed.