Brit Awards PR gaffe is a priceless surprise
So House PR has delivered a #pricelesssurprise for its client Mastercard, sponsor of the Brit Awards this evening.
PressGazette have this from a PR email to a journalist:
Hope you’ve had a lovely weekend. As you know we’ve been in touch re. accreditation for the BRIT’s but just wanted to check in with you directly to confirm that you are happy with the below.Firstly as part of our Priceless Surprise we are putting on cars to take guests directly to the awards – we will be booking your car to take both yourself and Katy from the office at 4:30pm. Are you happy with these details?In addition – in return for this ticket we would like to ask that you agree to the following…Social media support from both publication and personal Twitter feedPre event – e.g. Really excited to be heading down to @BRITAwards tonight with @MasterCardUK #PricelessSurprisesEvent night – live tweeting from the event including @MasterCardUK handle and #PricelessSurprises and to retweet @MasterCardUK tweets throughout the night where appropriatePost event – tweet directing followers to @MasterCardUK BRITs YouTube videosPre-event coverage of MasterCard’s Priceless Surprise video edits with either Laura Mvula, Kylie Minogue and/or Pharrell Williams – to include full credit for MasterCardUK and #PriclessSurprisesAll features to be pushed on publications social feeds – to include @MasterCardUK and #PricelessSurprisesMasterCard inclusion in post event write-up (print and online) including #PriclessSurprises hashtag and somethingforthefans.co.uk URLPost event write up presence on publication homepage (where possible)Inclusion of MasterCard branded event night images in post event piecePost event – coverage support for MasterCard music activity in 2014 (Beyonce & JT)
The Telegraph diarist Tim Walker, who received the email, has been tweeting about the email all morning.
Will #BRITs2014 exceed last year's for boringness? Already done so for venality with its conditions for journalists http://t.co/p9aIMBhj5t
— Tim Walker (@ThatTimWalker) February 19, 2014
He told The Press Gazette: “If they are going down that route they should really take out an advertisement.
“Going to the extent of drafting you a pro-forma Twitter message shows the extent to which Twitter is being polluted by all this sort of stuff.”
And of course, journalists all piled in with their own #Priceslesssurprises tweets.
That went well then #pricelesssurprises
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) February 19, 2014
Good press coverage is hard to bribe. For everything else there's Mastercard. #PricelessSurprises
— Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) February 19, 2014
Hashtag hijack #PricelessSurprises
— Simon Usborne (@susborne) February 19, 2014
Got into huge debt with credit card, so many #PricelessSurprises incl threatening letters from bailiffs (am I doing this right Mastercard?)
— Bella (@bellamackie) February 19, 2014
City AM called House PR for comment but nobody was available to take our call. Looks like a PR own-goal for House and a bit of a nightmare for Mastercard. Not the #pricelesssurprise they had in mind.