The Everest horse race: All PR is good PR… or is it?
WE Buchan’s Gemma Hudson considers if the old adage ‘all PR is good PR’ applies to the recent Everest horse race ad controversy.
Ten years ago I worked on the PR launch of a new drug. A few days ahead of the planned launch, news outlets in the US reported that the drug in question caused people using it to have suicidal thoughts. This story, of course, travelled the globe and was plastered all over our local news. In response, my team kicked into issues management mode, and we planned how we were going to handle this unexpected and difficult turn of events and put in a call to our client. His response to this worldwide negative media attention has stayed with me ever since: “All PR is good PR…”
Hmmm.
I remember being shocked at this old school ‘PR’ mentality, and I couldn’t have disagreed with him more if I tried.
I think the expression is ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity”.
Any way well done for bring even more attention to an issue that had almost gone away and will do anytime soon. The Opera house was built with gambling money and to this day is heavily subsidised. The Everest event attracted a few bucks to the NSW economy and everyone had a good time. Lets all move on.
With this line of thinking, would you also have no concerns if what was being promoted was alcohol? After all, they sell drinks at the Opera House.
If people are gathering in large numbers, at short notice to protest against your brand this is definitely not good PR.
What the story teased about but ignored was what the PR outfit did for the drug launch?
The other aspect to this is the bad PR for some people’s personal brands…
I for one won’t forget when it comes to voting day – take note, Gladys, ScoMo, Albo, and sadly, even Tanya.
Alan’s brand was already trashed IMHO… he’s a bully and really needs to go.
This is a pretty clear case of bad publicity.
Good to know for any current and prospective clients of WE Buchan (prior to the publication of this article) that they’ll be wheeling this utterly outdated BS out in the evaluation meeting after a crisis and negatively weighted sentiment on a failed project.
The race has been held? I missed that. I heard lots about the Opera House though.
To be fair i had never heard of the Everest race until this ‘stunt’ so from a PR perspective – yes it worked – people who didn’t know about it now do. However from a branding perspective i think it flopped. People now know about the race but hate it…so is all PR good PR…me things not.
Who “hates” the Everest?
If you didn’t like horse racing before this stunt than i doubt your opinion has changed much in either direction, but i doubt any horse racing fans were put off by all the drama.
In the end it was quite a spectacle and the crowd numbers were great, so overall it’s an objective success for racing. For the Opera house, maybe not as much as it’s triggered all the outrage brigade with nothing else to complain about at the moment.
That whole piece didn’t really seem to say anything or offer an opinion. So if the question is still about whether all PR is good PR (alt. even bad publicity is good publicity) then the answer, IMO, is no.
The real questions remain. Does this shape public opinion (in the long run) of the brand (and racing in general), which is the role of PR? This single question is critical, because in absence of any attitude reports or studies, and having only attendance to go on, then it clearly isn’t, because indicators were south.
It was advertising first and foremost, and only became PR as media jumped on and spread the alt views; I didn’t hear much out of Racing NSW or The Everest (probably good). Had it been a horse race, would it’ve been different? What if it promoted the Grand Final?
The debate rages on, though I will always take the no position on bad PR = good PR.