Naughty pee-arr company House PR apparently offered (UK) Telegraph journalist Tim Walker Brit Awards press accreditation in exchange for publishing promotional tweets with the Mastercard Twitter handle and its #PricelessSurprises hashtag. The email requested Walker publish tweets before, during and after the event, and guarantee Mastercard’s inclusion in any post event write-ups, both print and online, with hashtags and URLs included. #PricelessSurprises
In the spirit of PR fellowship and PR disaster recovery assistance, I can offer HousePR some coincidentally hot-off-the-press pointers here:
(H/t to Ken Garner and The Drum)
This is one of those situations that seemed like a good idea at the time (for Mastercard and the PR agency), and maybe would have been, if word hadn’t got out. I wonder what sort of journalist Tim Walker is – hopefully, not one reporting on consumer affairs!
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