Hails & Fails – November 10th 2023
It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, isn’t it? And there’ve been some heart-warmingly festive PR Campaigns to help usher in the season of goodwill this week.
Greggs brought back a Christmas classic, St Pancras gave us a well-read Christmas tree and Pret A Manger gave us seasonal sandwiches with a code. It was not a particularly fun festive week for Boohoo though following criticism of broken promises.
HAILS
The festive bake is back!
Hold the front page. Forget the John Lewis Christmas ad…Greggs has brought back its festive bake.
Landing in Greggs shops nationwide from Thursday 9th November, so legendary has the yummy pastry parcel become that many now consider it their first bite of Christmas.
Filled with chicken, stuffing and bacon as well as cranberry sauce – we’re fully signed up.
The announcement was made via an impressive drone show over the company’s factory, in Newcastle.
Coverage everywhere, as befitting a festive icon.
St Pancras unveils Christmas tree for Bookworms
It’s that time of year when it is socially acceptable to listen to Mariah Carey or to wear dodgy Christmas jumpers. Which also means that Christmas trees will be popping up all around us in cities across the UK.
The Christmas tree at London’s St Pancras will take some beating though – because, for 2023, the railway station’s Festive Fir is actually made out of more than 3,800 books.
The 12-metre-tall tree features a winding staircase, wrapping around 270 book shelves and the books used include festive faves like Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ and C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’.
At the base of the tree are also eight cubby holes where book fans can stop, sit and read. Perfection.
Crack the code for a Christmas butty
Sandwich superfans were beside themselves as Pret A Manger launched a Christmas sandwich with a twist – you had to crack a code to get one.
Fifteen security safes popped up at Prets across the UK – Carnaby Street (London), Spinningfields (Manchester), Central Square (Cardiff), Sauchiehall (Glasgow), and Cabot Circus (Bristol) plus 10 other London shops – and they all had the special safes, which contained the very first batch of Pret’s Christmas Lunch Sandwiches. But fans had to crack a code to get one.
Great fun and a bonafide media hit too.
FAILS
Boohoo breaks ethical promises
Fast fashion brand Boohoo has been accused of broken promises to make its clothes fairly and ethically, according to a BBC Panorama investigation.
The firm pledged to make positive change to its practices in 2020 following criticism over workers’ pay and conditions. It promised to pay its suppliers a fair price for garments, with realistic timescales. But Panorama has published evidence of staff pushing suppliers to drive prices down, with secret filming revealing the pressure on timescales the company imposed.
A company spokesman said Boohoo has invested “significant time, effort and resource” into driving “positive change across every aspect” of its business following Alison Levitt KC’s independent review.
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