Greenpeace India’s tea shaming campaign is the PR winner

 12th August 2014    Good and Bad PR 
 Paarul Chand

Good PR

Greenpeace India names and shames tea companies Tata Tea, Twinnings and others to #CleanChai via hoardings

One thing Greenpeace is good at is the art of PR. In their latest campaign the environment NGO has put up hoarding along the Banda-Worli sea link in Mumbai – a high traffic area – asking tea majors to clean pesticides from their tea. Volunteers are perched along the hoarding and won’t come down until tea companies commit to removing pesticides:

It has all the hallmarks of a Greenpeace campaign. A high profile target coupled with a high visible, picture worthy, PR strategy. Greenpeace says that, “A cocktail of pesticide residues have been found in 46 samples of household tea brands”.

Yes Foundation launches the 101 hour film challenge with #YesIAmTheChange

Yes Bank’s CSR arm, Yes Foundation, has launched a film making contest. The task is to create short films highlighting topics for change:

Participants’ will receive the topic at 6am on August 15th, Independence Day, and will have to make a short film in 101 hours. Topics are based on social causes, everyday heroes and random acts of kindness.

The films will be judged by star names such as Vikramaditya Motwane, director of Udaan and Lootera; Guneet Monga, producer of The Lunch Box and Gangs of Wasseypur and Shoojit Sarkar, director of Vicky Donor and Madras Café. The best films will be screened nationally and internationally.

While the idea is interesting, it would be great to see if the films have actually created impact from the 2013 competition.

Bad PR

Smriti Irani’s Yale “degree” trends on Twitter

HRD minister Smriti Irani has already received a lot of flak for her lack of educational qualifications and the irony of her presiding over the country’s education system. Irani managed to land herself in fresh controversy by claiming that, “in that kitty of mine where people call me 'anpad' (illiterate) I do have a degree from Yale University which I can bring out and show how you Yale celebrated leadership capacities.”

Irani made this remark while addressing the ‘India Today Woman Summit 2014’. The degree was a certificate awarded for attending a 6 day crash course on leadership conducted by Yale.

The topic has trended on Twitter for the early part of the week.

Have you seen any good and bad PR?

Write to Paarul Chand at paarul@prmoment.in or tweet @PaarulC or @PRmomentIndia throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.