{"id":93512,"date":"2016-08-30T09:55:20","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T09:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=91607"},"modified":"2016-11-08T10:55:04","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T10:55:04","slug":"four-lessons-pr-pros-can-learn-from-traingate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/four-lessons-pr-pros-can-learn-from-traingate\/","title":{"rendered":"Four lessons PR pros can learn from #Traingate"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not sure if Jeremy Corbyn familiarised himself with Virgin Trains online privacy policy<\/a><\/u>\u00a0before boarding his train to Newcastle last week. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If he had, he should have taken particular notice of the statement (amongst others relating to passenger safety and crime): \u201cWe employ CCTV on our trains and in our stations in order to assist with the verification of claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had Richard Branson read the same page he might have taken note to the following paragraph:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reserve the right to withhold information where permissible by the Data Protection Act and we will only retain CCTV images for a reasonable period or as long as is required by law. In certain circumstances we may need to disclose CCTV images for legal reasons. When this is done there is a requirement for the organisation that has received the images to adhere to the Data Protection Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it is, the UK\u2019s \u201cmost authentic\u201d politician is looking slightly less authentic and the nation\u2019s favourite entrepreneur (although Corbyn might prefers the term \u201ctax exile\u201d) has irked the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office (ICO) who according to a tweet<\/a><\/u>\u00a0are investing whether the train company has breached the data protection act.<\/p>\n

So what lessons can the PR industry learn from this sorry episode?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Authenticity cannot be scripted like a piece of reality television \u2013 especially when there are date and time stamped CCTV cameras everywhere that have the potential prove that you \u201cman of the people\u201d speech is a work of fiction.<\/li>\n
  2. Don\u2019t use content just because it\u2019s available. Check you arguments are valid or you might just run the risk of being petty.<\/li>\n
  3. Don\u2019t show weakness. Surely the leader of the opposition has \u201cthe balls\u201d to ask a fellow passenger to move their bags so he can sit down.<\/li>\n
  4. Don\u2019t pick PR fights you cannot win. Sure, we can all complain about the state of the UK\u2019s rail system but Richard Branson remains an incredibly popular figure amongst the British public. Replying to a tongue-in-cheek statement with acquisitions of \u201ctax evasion\u201d and threats to nationalise the rail system might make you appear a little bitter.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Both Corbyn and Branson scored some own goals in the #Traingate episode \u2013 but in terms of winning the PR battle (regardless of the ICO\u2019s investigation), Virgin certainly came out on top.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I\u2019m not sure if Jeremy Corbyn familiarised himself with Virgin Trains online privacy policy before boarding his train to Newcastle last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":95082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7271],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93512"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95080,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93512\/revisions\/95080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}