Travel and Leisure PR consultant Gloucestershire-based copywriter

We were delighted to support the first ever FourSquarestival which took place in Cheltenham. Check out the video of the day itself….

Yesterday weather presenter Tomasz Schafernaker gave one of his colleagues the middle finger while live on air. Just a few months ago he was reduced to hysterics by an unfortunately rude mispronunciation when giving a BBC Radio 4 forecast. We love to hear about this type of gaff in the SB offices!  It proves than even journalists are human….

The Silver Ball PR account team has just returned from one of the most fabulous site visits in the consultancy’s history. We are delighted to have been appointed by Swire Hotels to help manage the regional launch of the former Kandinsky. The team visited the site in the centre of Cheltenham this morning, donned on their hard hats and high vis jackets and were treated to an exclusive preview of the new hotel. All we can say is that the transformation is nothing short of incredible… We are delighted to be working with James Partridge and his team on this exciting project.

Some of the Silver Ball PR account team on the roof of the former Kandinsky with hotel manager James Partridge

Silver Ball PR's lovely Emily Boal

Just returned from an event we organised for our client, Loop Scorpio. We hosted a Celebration of Speed to mark the launch of Gloucestershire’s fastest rural broadband connection. The broadband is supplying Ullenwood Court, a beautiful business park on the outskirts of Cheltenham. Tenants there are now getting 100Mpbs speeds which is remarkable.

Our guests at the Celebration of Speed included:

Scott Redding
Moto2 Champion racer, known as the fastest teenager in Gloucestershire.

Peregrine Falcon
The fastest animal from bird of prey expert and trainer Ben Long.

Greyhounds
Fresh off the track, Swindon Greyhound Stadium.

Lamboroughini Jota
(1970) Worth an estimated £500 000. It is the only one in the UK and one of only five worldwide.

Ferrari

Dick Lovett Ferrari Main Dealer Swindon

Aston Martin
Broughtons of Cheltenham

Audi R8
Blade Parklands Audi

Daytona 600 and Speed Triple
Blade Triumph Cheltenham

AC Cobra
Private Owner

Was a great event and has generated some great media coverage including the lead story on BBC Radio Glos this morning plus the front page of The Echo/Citizen Business Supplement.  PR is all about creativity and this event just showed how a little thinking outside the box can generate some great results!

UPDATE: 11.25am

So it seems to be that after my earlier blog, O2 has had a sudden delivery of the iPhone 3G 8Gb.   What a coincidence!

I even had a nice little phone call from a guy in their customer service team saying he had read my blog and he would be sending me one immediately. Apparently ‘they came in overnight’ even though at 8pm last night and 10am this morning, their customer service teams were unaware of their imminent arrival.

O2 you may have redeemed yourself with me – however there are still lots of other people chatting in your forums who were in the same boat. Perhaps you should try and sort them out too….

When you insure a product you expect a ‘like for like’ replacement.

If you insure your Mercedes, you expect another Mercedes if you write that one off. You would not expect your insurance company to replace it with a Skoda.

If your three storey house burns down, you expect your insurance company to pay for you to rebuild your house to look like the old property. You would not expect them to only pay for a bungalow.

Likewise if you iPhone gets smashed, you expect another iPhone…. not a Sony Ericsson.

O2 Insurance is not worth the paper it is written on. My recent experience has shown it to be flawed and I would encourage anyone with any sense to cancel their insurance immediately and look elsewhere for cover.

My iPhone was involved in a nasty accident which resulted in it being smashed. It just about works but I do nearly lacerate my finger every time I try to use it. My insurance claim was duly accepted as I have been paying my nice £10 premiums every month.

After accepting my insurance claim, O2s insurance company told me my model of the phone was ‘out-of-stock.’ My own investigations have since revealed the phone has been discontinued so will be permanently ‘out-of-stock.’ I went back to O2 and they confirmed that was the case. I asked for them to send me the iPhone model which was most similar to the one I had. They said they could not do that as they had to send out a ‘like-for-like’ alternative.

But, in almost the same breath, they said they would offer me a Sony Ericcson as a replacement. HELLO!!!!! That is not a ‘like-for-like’ alternative!!!!

So as you can see, I am furious. Lying in bed last night I was forming the basis of a anti-O2 insurance PR campaign with the core objectives being to educate potential customers against signing up for such an insurance plan.

If O2 do not sort out my phone within the next 3 days, said plan will be put into practice!

Core components include:

• Liaising with a great friend of mine who is a researcher at BBC Watchdog
• Protests outside O2 stores on days when they have new stocks of the iPhone 4. I am thinking people dressed in costumes which are made to look like broken iPhones. Great picture opportunities!
• Intensive social media activity
• Collating as many case studies as possible across the UK and selling those stories directly into regional press. The O2 forums have been helping to put me in contact with 100s of people who are having the same problem as me.

If you have any other good ideas which you think should be included in this forthcoming anti-O2 insurance PR campaign, drop me an email to annabel@silverballpr.com All suggestions will be warmly welcomed!

Rant over.

Everyone in our offices is just wishing every flight could be like this….. We all travel a lot and are waiting for the day when you can get from London to Boston in two minutes like this vid shows!

Click here to see what we mean:  London to Boston in 2 mins

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