Pizza Hut: yank our chain

Brand makeovers are a tricky PR challenge.

And Pizza Hut seems to know this. Or is it now Pasta Hut? Or will it be Pizza Hut again soon? Is it indeed at all Hut-like?

On Monday, the restaurant chain announced it was changing its name to Pasta Hut to reflect a changing market and menu. But it had a strange people's choice feature on its web site, inviting visitors to pull a rope that changes the brand to either Pizza Hut or Pasta Hut depending on their preference.

And it made it clear that if Pasta Hut was unpopular, it'd probably change the name back to Pizza Hut. Last night it ran full page ads in the free London papers proclaiming the arrival of Pasta Hut. So at least it's all crystal.

Online, it has registered pastahut.co.uk but not pastahut.com. Perhaps this is driven by a rebel faction of UK pizza/pasta bosses, flying below the radar of US brandmeisters?

Mine's a Marathon, washed down by a few Opal Fruits. Or is it?

Wave of change

I've been meaning to pick up on this for ages. The newbie regional TV newscaster syndrome of an unnatural level of gesticulation (firm swiping movements with a hand to convey action, clasping of hands for sincerity, manic pointing at the studio screen to illustrate something of little significance) seems to have gripped experienced national broadcast journalists too.

Without naming names, one senior business journalist in particular, who has been hogging his/her fair share of airtime given the current economic news, seems to have taken it to new depths. I do fear the individual concerned is going to do themself an injury if it carries on. Or be awarded an honorary GCSE in Drama.

Can't we get back to words and the incisiveness of reporting being what matters to the story, rather than the accompanying antics taking centre stage? If I wanted that much action, I'd go to a Joe Kinnear press conference.

Back to the future (him, not us I mean)

A few short points:

1. Rainier PR held its 10th birthday party this week.

2. Our very first bit of national press coverage was this corker, front page of The Sun. We gently arranged for the then Rt Hon Peter Mandelson MP to open a tech lab in Cambridge dressed in 'strange attire', at a time when tabloid speculation about his personal life was rife. That's how to make a tech product launch dominate P1 of a national.

3. 10 years on, Mandy is now back in the Cabinet, as opposed to the closet.

Funny old world.

A good Sport

Much as I support them as articles and it's an issue that needs as much exposure as possible, I do get bored of the 'percentage of women in the boardroom' articles in the press. They rarely have much new to say.

So here's something to fuel the debate hopefully - Pam McVitie has been made the Daily Sport's first female editor. If that job can be given to a lady, anything can.

Will PRs need a different, cleaner, approach to pitching Sport stories in future? Doubt it. It has already started banging on about a whole team of girl editors though.

Spells like lean spirit

At the risk of being crucified for every future error on this blog, I was indignant this morning at Metro's story on schoolchildren being made to abandon spelling tests in case they find them distressing.

Perhaps we should not interview people for jobs any more because they might cry, and perhaps I should tell people their work is amazing when it's below par.

Competitiveness is part of life and certainly part of the world of work. And spelling (plus, er, a basic grasp of English) is fundamental to a PR or journalistic career. We don't want kids turning out like Rambos of punctuation or arithmetic, but the ability to spell well is driven, I think, by being tested at school and wanting to do well at those tests.

School should help you to identify what you're good at and where you can improve - areas where you'd be wise to invest more effort to compensate for any lack of natural talent. My own experience was no different - perennial girly swot at English, typically bottom of the class at needlecraft (remember the evil-looking patchwork turtle do you, teacher with the big hair and thick glasses?).

If British children are going to come into the business world devoid of the ability to compete and the ability to spell well, we'll have a labour market like football clubs - flooded with talent from elsewhere, where the desire to win and succeed is questionably greater. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing in itself. But as a taxpayer I'd be distressed (I might even weep uncontrollably, bless me) at the thought of what I'm shelling out for educating a generation who risk being sod all use to industry.

Desperately seeking: brighter shade of bail(out)

In a move more predictable than Newcastle United changing its manager, the US Senate has approved the financial bail-out plan. And in doing so made the country's management look more than a little daft.

In handling a situation that the whole world was scrutinising, its PR strategy was pretty woeful. I'll spare you the analysis, but suffice to say posturing over an inevitable decision, one-way communication and a visible undercurrent of fear were not the way to come through it shining. Richard Edelman has a very sensible and pragmatic precis.

If things are hitting the fan, doing PR right is even more critical and should be front of mind at the highest level. It might well have been for the powers that be in recent days, but they made pretty bad decisions and consequently a real hash of it.

EuroTunnel 'almost on track with customer relations' shock

I'm a right grumpy git about customer service. And other things, but particularly customer service.

So EuroTunnel should get a small medal after the recent fire. I asked for a refund after being told that the work to repait the damage meant a restricted service and certain delays.

I got the automated email back saying I'd be refunded. I (a bit rudely, admittedly) wrote back asking whether the refund would credit my account within a week, or whether it might take a period of several months.

Then I got this email back. OK, no firm commitment but at least they wrote back as I hadn't expected a response. I've responded asking for clarification on what "a few" means of course.

Dear Mr Earl,
Thank you for your email.
Due to the number of refunds issued after the suspension in our service it will take somewhat longer for your refund to be issued, we currently estimate it can indeed take a few weeks. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this.

Kind regards Eurotunnel Sales Support Team

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR ORIGINAL E-MAIL WITH ANY REPLYSales Support Team Eurotunnel Group UK Terminal Ashford Road Folkestone Kent CT18 8XX E-Mail. sales.support@Eurotunnel.com < mailto:sales.support@Eurotunnel.com>(RL)