The Week in PR

So there’s been one massive story in PR this week, which kind of leaves everything else looking a bit like iPadding (ba-boom-tish) but we’ve blogged about that already. And even if you haven’t heard about it – and really, if you haven’t, what the hell have you been doing – there’s nothing quite as warming as Stephen Fry on a fanciful roll. Anyway, in other things….

Superfoods = superscam?

New research revealed this week from Kansas State University’s very official sounding Cardiorespiratory Exercise says ingesting too many ‘superfoods’ could mean “an imbalance between antioxidants and pro-oxidants” according to Alastair Jamieson in the Telegraph. Now according to science, this is a bad thing. But, more importantly, this finding shakes our faith in the superfood as the holy grail of dietary crazes.

This may come as a shock to many; a good “superfood” story has been a mainstay in traditional mainstream media for at least the last six years. Whether we’re stuffing ourselves with cinnamon to ensure that we’re keeping wrinkles at bay, bingeing on broccoli to tame our surging blood pressure or drinking gallons of blueberry juice to ensure that we never forget all of the other nasty foods that we shouldn’t eating or drinking.

Even more confusing is the conjoining of people’s love of a good healthy eating fad with their love of lists. Surely there’s more to wild Alaskan salmon than a need to have it compete against the humble goji berry for sexiest super food of 2010.

Why dress up the varied health benefits of good food with flashy scientific claims? Well the obvious answer is that people are striving for a quick dietary fix to solve much larger problems.

If you’re stressed and not cooking proper meals on a regular basis, a handful of sugar snap peas every day isn’t going to be the catch all solution that you may expect. Much larger lifestyle changes have to be made. If demystifying the “superfood” tag helps us realise that it can only be a good thing.

Now do excuse us, we’re off to drink a litre of red wine to keep our smiles bright (but our lips all red and smudgy).

Bubble wrap Babylon

Confused.com received a nice spread of coverage following their identification of the most accident prone street in Britain. Somerville Road in Worcester, or “Accident Avenue”, was covered in bubblewrap to highlight the dangers of driving in hazardous wintry conditions. In a natty piece of planning, this photo stunt also co-incided with bubblewrap’s 50^th birthday.

Yes, we’re aware that this campaign seems to be inspired by some work that 118118  did a couple of years ago, but if something ain’t broke, why fix it?

Mum’s the word

Big props to the super savvy Justine Roberts, one of the co-founders of influential website and forum for mothers Mumsnet, who continues to be the go-to-girl for any media that wants a  “mother’s perspective”. Take a look at just this week, whether popping up to debate the appropriateness of GMTV’s piece on breastfeeding, discussing child protection with Channel 4’s anchors or reacting to increased paternity leave on Sky News, Justine has made sure that she always comments on the news stories that relate to her and Mumsnet’s target demographic, finding a new, refreshing take on the story.  

As Sarah Sands comments in the Evening Standard: “Mumsnet is not really a female co-operative but a political lobby group, and Justine Roberts is fast becoming the voice that represents this movement.”

Disclosure: Mumsnet is not a client of Porter Novelli’s, we’re just loving their work.

Cheap, cheerful and better?

The latest Which? survey pitted all the supermarket chains against each other, rating them on overall customer satisfaction. Luckily for Which? The survey threw up some surprises, the most notable being that budget chains Aldi and Lidl have made huge strides in the hearts and minds of the British public, coming joint third in the poll and finishing ahead of Sainsbury’s, Asda and, crucially, Tesco.

It’s a great story – topical, unexpected, supporting the underdog but, for us, the most pleasing part of the whole furore has to be The Sun’s genius headline “Every Lidl helps”. Whoever was responsible for that needs a raise right now.