Would you read The Optimist?
I know that sometimes I can be annoyingly positive. It’s not my fault. I can’t help it. It’s my job. The irony is that as an insanely grinning PR professional it’s my job to get stories into a pessimistic national media that only wants our bad news.
To be frank, that makes our job rather difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining (that would be a little negative) and it’s what gives successful PR real credibility.
Anyway, it got me thinking, would there be a market for a happy-go-lucky national newspaper that only printed good news? We’d have to call it ‘The Optimist’ and make it a free-sheet because paying for good news just defeats the purpose of the feel-good publication.
But, what would we put in it? Well, I had a rummage around some recent burning issues and tried to think how the stories would appear in ‘The Optimist’…
A Home Office survey suggests 80% of young people haven’t committed a criminal offence and mean us no harm. That means the odds are in your favour if you meet a gang of hooded youths in a dark alley; plus there’s a 47% chance the yobs will have five A* to C-grade GCSEs too. So, young people are generally ‘okay’. Adults forget we were all young once and used to do dumb things. Stuart, aged 35 from Chester, said: “I know I used to wear a baggy denim shirt with a brown suede waistcoat, which certainly deserved a prison sentence.”
Millions of delighted school children had a wonderful few days playing in the snow when nearly 100,000 schools closed due to the cold-snap. The coldest winter in 27 years meant children could forget their schoolwork and instead get some fresh air, build snowmen and throw snowballs at the neighbour’s cat. Nine-year-old Stuart from Chester said: “It was wicked! Even my dad was in a good mood because he couldn’t get into work and instead got to stay at home and watch Loose Women.”
TJ Hughes, the discount department store, is forecasting to complete the year with overall sales up 8.3% on last year and Saunders Honda in Chester doubled like-for-like new car sales in January 2009 and tripled showroom traffic. When it comes to the crunch some retailers are bucking the trend and seizing the opportunities. Stuart, from Oakbase in Chester, said: “We played a big part in their marketing campaigns and would like to bask in some of the reflected glory.”
…So, I wonder if I should give Murdoch a call and see if he’s interest in backing ‘The Optimist’? He’d probably never go for it but I might as well give it a go; there’s nothing like a bit of optimism.
Stuart Hughes
PR Manager