Hails & Fails – December 17th 2021
While the media has been full of Omnicron stories amid fears of a New Year lockdown, there’s still been plenty of space for fantastic PR campaigns this week.
Aldi gave us cheap-as-chips Christmas champers, Brazen client Foodhub revealed Britain’s favourites on the classic Christmas dinner plate and Dr. Seuss Enterprises opened a full-size Grinch’s cave which you can book a stay in. It was a difficult week for BBC’s Countryfile however, after their Christmas special was branded a rip-off by consumers.
HAILS
Aldi launches a pop-up champagne bar where bubbly is just £2.33 per glass
Supermarket Aldi has launched an undercover pop-up champagne bar in London, cheekily named, Veuve, with prices that won’t set you back a fortune over the festive season.
Glasses of champagne at the bar come in at just £2.33 and whole bottles are available for £13.99. That’s because the Aldi Champagne Bar is stocked with the supermarket’s own-brand champers, Veuve Monsigny. The bar is located in one of the ‘UK’s most expensive postcodes’ – at St Christopher’s Place in London’s West End – and customers can sip fizz surrounded by brushed gold and marble decor, with teal velvet furnishings and tastefully low lighting. Great timing ahead of sparkle season and both queues and coverage were overflowing, as you’d expect!
The humble roast potato wins Christmas
If you thought Christmas Dinner was all about the pigs-in-blankets, Yorkshire puddings and turkey, you’d be wrong…
New research by Brazen client and leading food delivery app, Foodhub, has revealed that roast potatoes are the UK’s favourite bit of Christmas dinner.
The study asked participants about their favourite part of the year’s best meal – and a huge 57 per cent said roasties. Turkey was the second most popular item on the menu for Christmas Day while pigs-in-blankets came in third. Kent, it turns out, is the likeliest to go in hard on the little savoury piggies – Pigs in Blan-kent, if you like…
Tonnes of national coverage won for this seasonal yarn.
You can now steal the Grinch’s Christmas Lair for a night
Christmas fans now have the chance to actually visit and sleep inside a cave that is identical to the Grinch’s famous lair.
Until December 23rd, guests can book their stay in the multi-level, 5,700 square-foot cozy residence near Boulder, Utah.
And it’s all thanks to a partnership between Dr. Seuss Enterprises and Vacasa—the vacation rental management website—who dreamed up the idea.
The cave was hand-carved and designed to mimic the exact one we see in the film, constructed on the side of a massive stone mountain, with all the Grinch’s accoutrements inside.
Another well-timed campaign and loads of media love for the story, too.
FAILS
Countryfile Christmas Rip-off
BBC Countryfile fans have criticised the show’s Christmas in the Park event as a “rip-off’.
Customers were charged up to £80 per day for the event and promised show presenters and celebrity TV chefs as well as crafts and baking workshops.
Stars Matt Baker, Sean Fletcher, John Craven and Anita Rani were at the event, but some visitors said they hardly saw them.
Disappointed fans also complained that they were forced to leave after an hour as there was nothing to do. Organisers appear to have been surprised by inclement weather as car parks became quagmires and families with pushchairs and wheelchairs struggled through thick mud.
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