Good and Bad PR:The Jeff Bezos non-event, 'Sunfeast Marie Light Mode', and Cannes Lions’ new king of the jungle

Welcome to this week's Good and Bad PR. This is where we rate some of the most high profile PR campaigns we've seen in India over the past two weeks. We rate each campaign by our complicated black box evaluation methodology which uses 3 assessment levels:

[Rating Metre: Hmmm… → Not bad at all! → Oof, this is awesome!]

Water you talking about, Jeff?

Man shared a quote. Quote took a wrong turn. Somewhere between Reuters and the internet, it acquired lore and never looked back.

In this week's episode of "That Escalated Quickly", Jeff Bezos allegedly suggested that human water consumption was limiting AI's potential. The statement travelled across the internet at the speed of Mad Max: Fury Road before ThePrint clarified that the reporting was inaccurate.

By then, of course, the story had its own fan-fiction and merch.

The awkward thing about corrections is that they rarely enjoy the same marketing budget as the mistake. And in the attention economy, accuracy and reach gotta have their stories straight before they spread like wildfire.

Information travels fast. Storytelling travels faster.
I guess ol’ Jeff’s original quote never stood a chance in the first place.

Rating: Hmmm...

This Date Could Have Been an Email

Human beings have accomplished many remarkable things. We've mapped the human genome, built cities that never sleep, and invented computers that fit inside our pockets. We've also figured out how couples can spend an entire evening together without spending the entire evening together. 

Sunfeast Marie Light's latest Marie Light Mode campaign takes aim at that peculiar modern achievement. Through an activation encouraging couples to temporarily "divorce" their phones, the brand asks a surprisingly reasonable question: when did being together stop requiring attention?

The campaign works because the behaviour is instantly recognisable. Most people don't need convincing that phones have become third wheels in relationships. They've already watched it happen across dining tables, living rooms and holidays.

What gets me, though, is the irony.  Modern marketing has spent the better part of two decades trying to occupy every spare moment we've got. Now, it wants to give some back. The connection to a Marie biscuit is a little harder to explain, mind you.

Rating: Not bad at all!

The Fringe That Went Mainstream

For years, brands treated creators the way people treat the parsley garnish on a restaurant dish. Technically important. Occasionally useful. Mostly decorative.Then, one day, the restaurant realised the garnish owned the building.

This year, the Cannes Lions noted the growing presence of creators across the festival, not just as speakers or content partners, but increasingly as businesses, strategic partners and decision-makers in their own right. At first glance, this isn't breaking news. The communications industry has spent the better part of a decade discussing influencers, creator marketing and the creator economy.

For decades, communications followed a fairly predictable model. Brands created messages. Agencies refined them. Media houses distributed them. Audiences received them. Today, a creator can create the message, build the audience, distribute the content, sell the product and shape the conversation around it.

The creator economy didn't disrupt advertising. Advertising slowly became the creator economy. The rebels didn't change. The establishment did. You can see the formalisation happening in real time. New Cannes categories. Creator-specific programming. Creator-focused investment. An industry that once viewed creators as a tactic increasingly treating them as an institution.

The disruption happened years ago. Looks like the paperwork finally caught up.

Rating: Oof, this is awesome!

Indian Creator Sufi Motiwala at Cannes