04 April 2007

Hot Cross Bunnies….

TWL’s in-box bulged with thorny emails highlighting the Somerfield/Brando fiasco.

Great to see PRs are still able to cock-up horrendously without having to get all 2.0 about it. The toe-curling embarrassment is all the worse as the poor Easter bunny concerned, Hayley Booth, was frozen in the media headlights.

A devoted disciple tried to avert Hayley’s crucifixion by racing onto The Times comment section and claiming the controversy was all a jolly clever PR jape designed to maximise coverage.

TWL is agnostic on this, unless Somerfield’s brief ran along the lines of: “Make us – and the agency – look incompetent and foolish.”

Rather than popping to the toilets for a quick Pilate-esque washing of his hands, Somerfield PR Pete Williams bravely stepped up to the plate and told the BBC: “It's a mistake. We hold up our hands to that." And then presumably kicked himself for not saying: “Hayley’s not the account lead, she's a very naughty girl.”

Funny enough the news release (any version of it) doesn’t appear on either the Somerfield or Brando websites. Nor is it one of the ‘live case studies’ on the Brando site. To be fair, it’s probably been a long day.

When the story was sent out yesterday it only created a small amount of average. Today the amount of coverage went up considerably. On the third day, we reckon it’ll rise again….

7 comments:

figgis said...

>When the story was sent out yesterday it only created a small amount of average.<

Come on TWL, you can't write about hilarious PR cock-ups and put silly typos in!

Then again you may well have been laughing so much it was impossible to type straight?

Well done to Brando for really brightening up my day yesterday!

Anonymous said...

i thought the four legged duck was much better

Anonymous said...

Brando is of course none other than Band & Brown - just as well B&B's name didn't come out in this, would have been a much bigger deal in PR land

Anonymous said...

"Screw ups without walls."

figgis said...

>just as well B&B's name didn't come out in this, would have been a much bigger deal in PR land<

you think?

wonder which ex-employee posted the screw-ups without walls comment...

Anonymous said...

I thought all releases were cleared by 16 bored-directors?

figgis said...

>I thought all releases were cleared by 16 bored-directors?<

If that's true - doesn't that make this all the more galling?