Apollo Tyres’ ‘Adopt a Pothole’ wins Cannes Silver Lion, but Lemp Brewpub cooks up disastrous PR

 20th June 2013    Good and Bad PR 

Great PR
 

Apollo Tyres' 'Adopt a Pothole' wins Cannes Silver Lion
 

Apollo Tyres' hilarious campaign to fix the ever present potholes on our roads has won silver at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week.

The concept is very simple. Show poor, neglected potholes some love. Pick a pothole you would like to fix, adopt it, click its picture, get supporters to back the adoption and send it to Apollo Tyres who will then fix the pothole.

A clever campaign with high engagement value and perfect synergy with the product. Plus, it actually addresses one of the biggest issues that damages tyres on the ground:

 

Other awards won include Hindustan Lever’s wash your hands message, which was stamped on 2.5 million rotis at Kumbh Mela to leverage Lifebuoy soap, they got the bronze at Cannes. This is a campaign that we have featured on Great PR earlier..

Gillette Shave or Crave campaign, also carried on Great PR, has won the bronze as well.

Mills & Boon lovers can swoon away while reading romance in Hindi!
 

Miranda and Nick could soon be called Meera and Nikhil. In a move that is bound to spark media interest, Mills & Boon, the ambassador for lurid romances, will soon be available in Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil, by the end of the year.

While there is a huge market for fiction in regional languages, not all titles work. As per  Diamond Pocket books, well known for publishing Hindi pulp fiction, the translation of Fifty Shades of Grey was a disaster.

While poorly written mommy porn may not have worked in Hindi, perhaps the candyfloss lightweight romance will generate sales. It has certainly created a good advance buzz.

Bad PR
 

Lemp Brewpub cooks up bad press
 

Most of you are already aware of the Lemp Brewpub fracas. The incident is a textbook case of how not to behave with customers.

To recap the incident. A group of really angry customers say that the pub did not meet their promised commitment on the offers, as advertised on food review site Zomato. According to the customers, the food served was iffy and the situation quickly escalated when they refused to pay up. The police were called in and a ride to the police station took place before the customers were let go.

But that’s not the end of the story. The issue quickly spread due to this scathing review and the administration behind the pub in Gurgaon were clearly clueless about how to respond.

Read a detailed account of the whole event here.

While Zomato, which also got dragged into the controversy, was quick to rebut the issue, Lemp Brewpub attempts have been clumsy. From changing the name of its Facebook profile and then claiming hacked servers, to threats of legal action against the customers for writing about their experience.

Clearly, a concerted PR response to the issue, especially on social media, was not implemented.

Is there something about the food business that triggers this? Take a look at this account of a meltdown by the owners of a restaurant in Arizona.

Not one to file in the recipe book!