I received this email this morning. I thought the purpose of PR was to ingratiate itself subtly? Instead, Positive Marketing is going for good old-fashioned bribery. I'd be interested to see how many references people spot before the deadline of 30 April (I suppose you could count this, but I'm not sure if it's quite what they had in mind)? The grammar and spelling is shocking as well.

Could it be that Alex Curran's recent trip to a health store was promted by more than just insecurity?

Interesting how her purchase is clear to see, rather than in one of her many bags...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1259616/Alex-Curran-spotted...

People still often make the mistake of thinking that PR consists of obvious tactics - press conferences, photo opportunities, press releases - but the reality is often a lot more subtle. Here's an example, of a Belgian company which sells home tuition services for school children, who managed to manipulate some coverage with a clever PR ruse:

http://www.connexionfrance.com/hoax-school-absence-note-website-fools-fr...

From the website of RTE, Irish broadcaster, http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0227/ryanair.html

Impatient passenger eats €10k scratchcard
Saturday, 27 February 2010 15:20

A Ryanair passenger ate his €10,000 winning scratch card after he was
told he could not claim the money immediately, it emerged today.

The unnamed man was flying with Ryanair from Krakow in Poland to East
Midlands Airport in England when he won €10,000 with the scratch card.

Crew on board the flight confirmed he had won the prize but told the

How could the chairman of the British Airports Authority possibly manage to get a national newspaper to provide him with a platform to promote the deeply self-serving idea that building a third runway at Heathrow Airport is a move which will assist the fight against global warming? A keen-eyed reader points out that the offending interview, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph, was 'sponsored' by the Carbon Trust, whose slogan is to help business profit from carbon reduction.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/workingforchange/5699051/Time-to-clear-the-airways.html

Did anyone else see this totally bogus and fatuous story? Reportedly a two
year old who had 'set up his own blog' on cooking.. er? Sorry? Utterly
spurious. The real story was his dad, whose business had failed, trying to
get some publicity for his new venture. An utter sham. Two pages wasted on
this piece - shocking...

 From the Evening Standard:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23797782-is-baby-archie-...

Try this as a classic example of the power of PR in the world of Flat Earth News:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMQCcOSfaYw