Tuesday 27 January 2009

How To Shoot Yourself In The Foot


Richard Branson used to be really media savvy and publicity-wise. Obviously he's now too rich and too comfortable, and too removed from the nitty-gritty of actually running his business.

How else can you explain the publicity disaster all over the Labourgraph today, complete with a series of embarrassing colour photographs - thanks god for technology! - illustrating and providing irrefuatble evidence of the validity and accuracy of the complains so eloquently expressed by an underwhelmed passenger on a Virgin flight to Mumbai?

The Bearded Wonder telephones the letter writer and pisses him off further by thanking him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. The twat in charge of Corporate Spin then describes the food as "award winning". Did he used to work for McBroon?

So the passenger "goes global" and the resultant publicity hits the internet and the press, where it is described as "currently being emailed globally and is considered by many to be the world's funniest passenger complaint letter."

Well done. How much does it cost to try and win customers through advertising?

The Penguin

1 comment:

John Pickworth said...

On a recent L O N G D I S T A N C E flight (I'll not embarrass the airline but it wasn't Virgin).... The aircraft made a rather rapid escape from a quickly darkening Heathrow and before we'd even reached the coast of France, dinner was being thrown at the passengers.

Less than 20 minutes later, the trays were being cleared no matter if you'd finished eating or not.

As the flight entered German airspace (barely an hour into 16 hour flight) the cabin lights were dimmed and the order was given to sleep. Seriously; "Sleep now" the voice of the crew repeated to the wide-eyed passengers. It wasn't even 10pm London time.

Now, I have never been able to sleep on an aircraft, ever... no matter how tired, not a single second of unconsciousness will come. Judging from the mumbling around the cabin, others too were having the same problem.

Anyway, long story short, I accidentally ran into the Captain after we'd landed. I asked him if this was normal on this flight and he told me the cabin staff 'put the passengers to bed' so that they could sleep too. Apparently, they shopped and partied away during their stay-over in London and only slept when airborne! I'm not sure which was more shocking; the fact the crew behaved this way or the casual manner the Captain explained it?

Needless to say, I've never used that airline again on any route.