Black Friday is PR gold for Amazon

 4th December 2014    Good and Bad PR 

Good PR

There has been some inspiring PR recently …

Gold Friday

First, there was some sort of glitch on the Amazon system so when lots of Black Friday goodies were returned, instead of going back to the depot, they were delivered to 22-year-old Robert Quinn. Being a good human being, he chose to contact Amazon about this, to which it initially said that people must be gifting him these items.

As he didn’t know these people, he doubted it, but left it. When even more items were delivered, he chose to contact Amazon again, when they then realised there was a system glitch. Robert has so far received 51 items, ranging from 3D TVs, to Xbox One games and buggies. For its error, Amazon has let Robert keep the goodies, of which he’s going to donate some to charity and sell the rest to fund his trip to Bruge (as well as raise funds for a cannabis grinder that he’s designing – this is an odd one, but okay …).

Messy man

Today’s good PR also has to go to Yolanda Bogert and Guy Kershaw in Brisbane, Australia, for the way they dealt with their daughter coming out as a transgender man, Kai.

The couple gave birth to Elizabeth in 1995 and shortly after put a birth announcement into their local paper. Nineteen years later they printed a retraction in order to correct their mistake and acknowledge and publicly accept Kai’s decision to live his life as a man.

The retraction read: "In 1995 we announced the arrival of our sprogget, Elizabeth Anne, as a daughter. He informs us that we were mistaken. Oops! Our bad. We would now like to present, our wonderful son – Kai Bogert. Loving you is the easiest thing in the world. Tidy your room."

This is fantastic! It was printed in the birth section of the newspaper, which is far better than it initially coming out as a story within the newspaper, and secondly it ended with a joke. No doubt Kai was initially embarrassed, but I’m sure he is overcome with joy and love for his parents.

The newspaper clipping has gone viral and hopefully will lead to transgender people feeling as though they too can come out and live the life they feel comfortable with, as well as helping others to understand and come to terms with those they love who find themselves in the same situation.

Written by Samantha Summers, 10 Yetis

Seen any good or bad PR recently, you know what to do, @10Yetis on Twitter or andy@10yetis.co.uk on email.