Kate Betts Blog

What can we learn from an octopus? Well, quite a lot really when it comes to media coverage. Paul the Octopus hasn’t just got coverage in the local press – he’s gone global. He now his own iPhone app and, as I write this, there are negotiations for a possible transfer to Madrid. What great media coverage for Germany’s Oberhausen Sea Life Centre. If only the Deep in Hull or Sea Life in Scarborough had thought of it first.

It just goes to show that the media love a daft story. Whether it’s liquorice allsorts figure Bertie Bassett getting married or Walkers launching a competition for a new flavour of crisp - the media lap it up. I remember years ago running a front page story at the Northern Echo saying the Wensleydale Creamery was offering a year’s supply of free cheese to anyone who found the Wallace and Gromit puppets. They had gone missing in New York and the creamery had just got the rights to stick the pair on the labels of their Wensleydale cheese. Daft, but true.

So when you are thinking about ways of raising your company’s profile – don’t dismiss the daft stories. They could bring you in a lot of free publicity.