Is it time for public relations and St Valentine to call it a day?
January 24, 2008 by Sebastian Mysko
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Before Santa has even parked his sled back at the North Pole, once again our shops are lined with a multitude of pink and red cards, fluffy toys and ‘naughty gifts’ ahead of the festivity of St Valentine’s Day. Now, I understand that everybody has their own opinion with regard to how much the day should be celebrated. Take my flat mate for example, nice guy with a very lovely lady, yet he’s adamant that he will do nothing out of the ordinary for this occasion… “I never have and I never will!” he grumbles.
I myself am slightly cheesier – nothing stupid, but where’s the harm in a home cooked meal and a bottle of red. We tend to do a lot of that anyway. My point is that romance is a good thing, but it shouldn’t be forced.
Anyway, I read this hilarious post this morning on the Real Business blog page, all about public relations companies using Valentine’s Day to promote their products. Amongst the offenders were Pearl Drops with:
“Girls, do you want to make a good impression on 14 February? If you have your eye on someone special, forget saucy underwear and flowers; just make sure your smile is shining for maximum seduction success!”
There are more where that came from, but I thought I’d open this topic up on our site too. So the question is, should Valentine’s Day be another excuse for a PR story, or should we all agree never to tenuously link an unrelated product to the day of love. Let the debate begin..
I have to admit it - I have been involved in campaigns which were linked to valentine’s day although to be honest they very rarely achieve any coverage anyway. My news release was for Zovirax the cold sore cream and it was linked to people kissing on first dates - so there was a fairly strong link and some good stats but it still didn’t yield much as journalists get bored of the same stories appearing. It’s very similar to the Christmas thing every PR agency across the country tries to find an angle. I think maybe the whole industry should agree to leave it alone next year but I fear that will never happen. Come next year on February 14th you will open your national newspaper and see a story which informs you that its actually proven that Valentine’s Day is the best day of the year to use shake and vac!
Well without wanting to state the bleeding obvious it depends on whether you’re flogging flowers or anti-tank missiles.
I don’t think anti-tank missiles actually qualify as a romantic symbol and it would be pretty difficult to link them to valentines day although some of my ex-girlfriends may disagree.