London Fog recently hired Christina Hendricks from acclaimed show Mad Men to advertise their coats. Good call, the lady is in a show from an era people consider classier, the dressing is sharp and she’s very attractive so what could go wrong?

Photoshop.

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Jackie Daly posed this cracker for the Friday Social Media/PR fun following on from the Star Trek PR Problem and Godzilla destroying London:

Parents across the country are up in arms after The Bogey Man was found volunteering at a soup kitchen. “I just wanted to give something back to the community,” he commented earlier today.

“How on earth am I going to scare my children into bed now?” one angry parent asked outside a local primary school this afternoon.

The Bogey man’s reputation is in tatters – can you save him?

As always with these types of posts, it’s quite long – about 1500 words.
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As the footy season is nearly upon us, it might seem prudent to point out a couple of good pieces on football and social media (one of them written by a guy who did a book on football) that give pointers on how clubs of all sizes could increase interaction with their fans:

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We’ve had Star Trek, we’ve had Godzilla trashing London after being released by a criminal mastermind and now we’re looking for something for tomorrow.

The rules are the same as always: put some ideas in the comments section below. I’ll pick one at midnight and then either get right into it or sleep on it. Either way, the PR solution gets posted tomorrow so you know it’s not faked.

If no-one has any good ideas, don’t worry there’s some great ideas in the comments section from last week and I can use one of them instead.

And as always, if there’s an idea that stumps me (which is different from an idea not used) there’s a bottle of whisky in it as a well done.

So whatcha got?

Hootsuite – the much-loved social media networking utility  – has announced pricing plans ranging from free to $1500 a month. The question is this: will people pay it or will they jump ship to the likes of Tweetdeck? And isn’t it ironic that the add-on services seem able to make money off Twitter when Twitter itself can’t?

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This is something that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine – and there’s an online and digital PR lesson for companies here too – this idea that if you aren’t on the internet (or it isn’t on the internet) then it never happened.
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I love Edinburgh as a city. While it doesn’t have the buzz of Glasgow, it is far more relaxed, like a Brussels without the bars. Or diamonds for that matter. But one thing it has plenty of is social media activists and practitioners. It also has a stonking huge festival or two. And now they’ve all come together for the good of Scotland. Or to fight evil. Or something. What it won’t be though is dull…

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Quick client announcement: if you are a journalist or blogger in Edinburgh during the Edinburgh Festival(s) and fancy eating free somewhere, then Illegal Jacks on Lothian Road will happily feed you for free in return for a review.

Full press release after the link. And yes, the offer is open to Edinburgh bloggers and press too.

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So, as part of a plan to lighten things up around here, I asked for submissions for fictional PR problems (inspired by my Star Trek social media and PR post) and got some really good replies (at least if no-one gives me a new one next week, there’s plenty here to play with). Thanks everyone for the entries, the winner for this week was from the wonderful Barry Dewar:

A giant Japanese monster descends on the UK. The police are quickly overwhelmed while people and property is being destroyed. The press discover that it’s all being stage-managed by an evil criminal mastermind with a self-image problem. The world teeters on the edge of distaster….Save us Social Media!

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Let’s be honest, everyone involved in PR and social media can get a bit up themselves at times and take it all far too seriously (not that there aren’t times for being serious, but you know what I mean).

So in the spirit of my friend Lee Barnett who does a Fast Fiction challenge (go read lots of them or buy the book), here’s what we’ll do here every Friday (unless no one plays): I’ll put a post up looking for ideas – a fictional scenario that needs a PR/social media response on Thursday afternoons (yes, like the Star Trek PR Problem one I did but better formatted. If you watch it below you’ll see what I mean). I’ll close entries at midnight UK time, pick an idea and then one of the first things I’ll do on a Friday is do a PR/Social Media treatment for it.

If any idea is put forward that is a genuine stumper, I’ll say so and give them a bottle of Whyte & Mackay whisky.

Let’s keep it light-hearted and fun – and I look forward to the challenges….put them in the comments below…

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