Three hits in one day for Which?
The award for most over-achieving PR department today goes to consumer watchdog Which?, who have managed to get three different news stories in the national press this morning.
Firstly, they revealed that as little as 6% of the money spent on charity Christmas cards actually goes to good causes – those covering the news included the BBC, the (suitably outraged) Daily Mail and the regional Metro:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8319302.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222036/Charity-Christmas-cards-just-6-good-causes.html
Next, the Telegraph reported on page 2 that Apple’s new Shuffle came last in a Which? test of mp3 players:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/6395787/Apples-iPod-shuffle-worst-mp3-player.html
And that’s not all – page 11 of the same newspaper announces (courtesy of another Which? report) that ‘more than half of broadband users had problems with their internet connection in the last 12 months’).
We’ve got to hand it to the comms team at Which?. Here at Beam (as in many agencies) our daily routine begins with a bout of media monitoring, and while we’ll regularly see the same PR-led story covered across a range of media it’s rare to see completely different stories appearing from the same source, on the same day.
Of course, we can’t be sure how the information was issued – but it’s interesting to note which angles were favoured by which titles. The Telegraph, known amongst other things for its high-quality tech coverage, went for the mp3 player and broadband stories; the Mail favoured the immediate and attention-grabbing headline provided by the Christmas card report.
Also interesting that all of this information seems to have been issued at the same time – would it have made more sense to stagger the releases, to maintain a steady flow of coverage in the all-important run-up to Christmas? The danger is, of course, that consumer editors soon become saturated with details from one company, and turn elsewhere for comment and research data.
But, saying that, it’s a great job from the team – and we wonder which other PR can beat three hits, for one client, in one day?