public relations

forget product placement…

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

…why not just suggest your client produces a musical about its product and puts it on at Edinburgh festy, getting the audience to pay £11 a pop to watch what is essentially an ad. Oh, and then you sit back and watch the pretty impressive PR about the project roll out too….

….the product? Pot Noodle!

Here it is covered by Mark Sweney in today’s Media Guardian…

Now it’s Pot Noodle: The Musical

The world of Pot Noodle, a brand that made a virtue of the catch phrase “Slag of all snacks”, is to be turned into a musical comedy at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Pot Noodle’s ad agency Mother London has been developing a stage production – Pot Noodle: The Musical – based on some of the creative concepts used in advertising the snack in recent years and aims to dish up a “smorgasbord of comedy”.

The show is set in the “idyllic all-singing, all-dancing Pot Noodle factory”, where workers “pluck Pot Noodles fresh from trees, bottle feed and show them a whole heap of tender loving care”.

It follows the story of the hero Steve, who tries to woo Sandie and overthrow the “bloated overlord” of the Pot Noodle factory, Allan Little, who has killed his brother in a bid to siphon off money to “spend on fast cars and loose women of virtue”.

Little has a “beastly asthma suffering henchman” called Flick Ferdinando.

The show, which will run at the Assembly in Edinburgh from July 31 to August 25, has drawn creatively on the songs and themes that have run through Mother’s recent un-PC Pot Noodle TV campaigns.

In the musical Digger, who has just fled from his wedding, and the hero Steve walk down the street singing the “Pact song” from the Pot Noodle ad about never putting a woman before mates.

“We can stay up late till dawn, watching classic vintage porn,” the duo sing. “We can scratch our balls with pride, our man breasts don’t need to hide.”

The idea of a benevolent Pot Noodle world first appeared with a TV campaign featuring a fictitious Welsh town of noodle miners.

And the irreverent songs that will feature in the Fringe production have come from the recent “Pot Noodle says” ad campaign.

The campaign also featured two crooners spoofing Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell and a 1980s power ballad with lines praying for women to be “easy, simple and hassle-free” like the snack.

The film, entitled Somers Town, is named after an area near King’s Cross in north London and tells of the friendship between two teenagers, one of whom is the son of an immigrant working on the new Eurostar terminal.

Mother is no stranger to extending brands beyond traditional TV advertising. Earlier this year the agency produced a feature film funded by Eurostar with Shane Meadows, the award-winning director of This Is England, which won top prize at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

all doom and gloom on the pink pages

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

For some clients, achieving coverage in the FT is still the most constant request and a crucial measure of success for a lot of corporate campaigns.

Looking at today’s paper though makes you wonder why though.

The main paper doesn’t have a single positive story until page 14 with the exception of a pr survey on page 3 that prob cost a fair amount in research fees and achieved a small column of about 25O words.

With headlines in the main paper dominated by words a such as danger, fraud, bribe, trouble and crisis (and companies and markets is no better) it left me feeling relieved that none of my clients are featured.

Whilst the ft reaches a crucial audience for many organisations, the job for PRs of getting positive news covered by relevant and respected outlets is getting increasingly tougher.

The basics don’t cut it now, one story does not fit all and knowing your media (online, offline, telly, blogs or whatever) is more important than ever before. With this much access to journalists’ likes and dislikes, lazily targeted or mismatched PR pitches are totally inexcusable. All it takes is a decent amount of groundwork and a bit of thought.

As a client selecting an agency in today’s climate, I would be demanding a senior but switched on team; really creative and intelligent ideas; a willingness to try new stuff and an outstanding contact book. It is a competitive market and those that try harder, go the extra mile and deliver over and above what is expected for both media and clients will be the ones who end up winning.