Good vs bad PR in 2024

It’s almost the end of 2024 (how did that happen?) and we’re writing a review of PR stories we loved and did not love. In no particular order…

The good

McDonald’s Happy Meals® Without Smiles

For the first time, McDonald’s UK temporarily removed the iconic smile from its Happy Meal® boxes. The move aimed to communicate to children that it was okay not to be always happy, helping spark family conversations about emotions during Mental Health Awareness Week.

To help activate this campaign they commissioned new research which revealed that almost half (48%) of UK children feel like they must be happy all the time, even if they do not want to be. They also partnered with BBC Children in Need to provide families with access to a hub of resources designed to encourage candid conversations on emotional wellbeing with children.

Next came some strong photo assets of Happy Meals® boxes without the smile and a sticker sheet, enabling children to illustrate their feelings directly onto the boxes themselves.  Former footballer and father-of-five, Rio Ferdinand, also supported the campaign, providing social media support, taking part in a photoshoot, and giving media interviews if needed.

We think this was an excellent campaign, thought-provoking, different, and newsworthy. Just a shame that they decided not to keep the Happy Meals boxes as a year-round campaign as we think the impact could have been greater and benefitted more families.

New Paddington film hits the cinemas

New films get released daily and vying for those all-important bums on seats in the cinema is big business. It can be a harder challenge if the film is part of a trilogy so how can you keep interest and be fresh and exciting?

The makers of the new Paddington in Peru film came up with the idea to contact the UK Home Office and request a British passport for Paddington so that he could film in Peru. The filmmakers didn’t expect a reply, but the Home Office stepped up and showed they had a good sense of humour by issuing Paddington with a (specimen) passport.

They listed him as a bear, and we assume marmalade eater was his occupation! The specimen passport achieved lots of great media coverage, such as on the BBC  and in The Guardian. A great creative idea and it made a new film release that little bit more newsworthy.

CALM’s missed birthdays balloon installation

In an emotionally charged campaign, the charity CALM created an installation of thousands of balloons, each representing a young life lost to suicide in the UK over the past decade, at Westfield Shopping Centre in London.

Missed Birthdays centred on new statistics from the charity, highlighting in the last decade, 6,929 young people have taken their own lives and would not celebrate another birthday and how we all have a role to play in keeping young people in our lives safe.

The poignant physical installation created strong media assets and families also bravely shared their personal stories with the media. On social media there was some criticism of the tone and appropriateness of using balloons – a symbol often associated with celebration – but we argue that without them the installation wouldn’t have been as visually impactful, creating not only a moment for shoppers to stop and look but for the media to have such striking image and film assets to use.

The charity sector is incredibly competitive and been hard hit during the cost of living crisis. There are many worthy charities highlighting such important causes and sometimes you need to be bold and brave with a campaign to make it stand out and create action and change.

The bad

Oasis reunion and Ticketmaster

‘Some might say’ Ticketmaster got it completely wrong when it came to the much-awaited Oasis reunion, and we are sitting in that camp due to the poor communications that happened when the tickets went on sale.

Who knew much about ‘dynamic pricing’ before these concerts went on sale and there were lots of fans who saw their tickets ‘Slide away’ due to the extortionate prices and ticket process which led to a very public blame game between Oasis and Ticketmaster.

As the media jumped on the ticketing fiasco, Ticketmaster  was the first to put its head above the parapet stating: “Promoters and artists set ticket prices. Prices can be either fixed or market based. Market-based tickets are labelled as “Platinum” or “In Demand.” Oasis waited longer and stated: “It needs to be made clear that Oasis leave decisions on ticketing and pricing entirely to their promoters and management.” And added that: “At no time had any awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used.”

It’s obvious neither party was on the same page and the number one rule is all stakeholders should be. So how could they have done better?

• Own the message early with clear, concise, and controlled responses and show transparency and action. One example is prepare a reactive media, customer services and social media Q&A document detailing all sorts of scenarios in advance.
• Ticketmaster should have released a statement as soon as the issue began, ensuring fans knew what was happening and the steps being taken to address the issue. And Oasis should have engaged with fans earlier to acknowledge their frustrations and show empathy. Silence is deafening and a vacuum of silence creates rumours and false narratives.

The Post Office scandal

The Post Office scandal has gone on for far too many years and it is a travesty that the compensation scheme for sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses is still ongoing. Thrown into the spotlight again following the 2024 ITV drama ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’, it has rightly shown the terrible mistakes and decisions made and the slowness of dealing with and supporting those affected. Lessons to learn from a PR perspective include:

• Bringing your public relations team into the decision-making process when a crisis emerges can be too late. As soon as you get wind of an issue contact the PR or comms team.
• It’s also important to have the right people with the right skills around the table. What has emerged from the current inquiry was senior management were happy to let their legal advisors guide their decisions but what about inviting public relations practioners into the room? Allowing your PR team to have challenging conversations and then listening to and acting on their difficult advice is key. 

The irony of this scandal is the Post Office was so obsessed with its reputation and went to such great lengths to protect itself from accusations of wrongdoing that it ended up trashing its historically good reputation anyway!