I believe it was Oscar Wilde who came up with the idea that 'all publicity is good publicity' but I must confess I've never agreed with the sentiment and particularly so now, when a bad review shared on social media that goes viral can send companies to the wall. One of the most successful marketing campaigns I've come across is that which created the wide acceptance of the name Hoover as a verb. https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/ quotes the Oxford English Dictionary as saying that people started to 'hoover their carpets and floors' in the late 30s, despite the Hoover vacuum cleaner only being patented in 1927. While the campaign was a resounding success, it's had its downside as the aforementioned website points out, since people also 'hoover up drugs' etc.

My household is generally calm but my goodness do we have some fraught discussions about waste, recycling and not throwing bits away that belong to other things just because they've become separated. If there's a lid floating around that belongs to a storage container, find the container and marry it up with the lid. If you have an odd sock, its partner will be in someone else's drawer. Don't create unnecessary waste! It seem so simple to me.

The other is one of them saying they're going to do the hoovering. "It's vacuuming," I tell them. "We have a Henry - not a Hoover". Anyway... I was somewhat miffed to find that 'Henry Hoover' was trending on Twitter the other morning so clicked the link to have my say on behalf of the cleaning industry: "Henry's not a Hoover!" I quickly realised I was looking at another 'bad marketing gone good' example in as much as Henry Hoover has clearly become a pet name for Numatic's tubvac and that morning people were singing his praises for his 'big break'... clearing up the orange powder paint scattered over a snooker table during a World Snooker Championship match at The Crucible, by a 'Just Stop Oil' protester.

As well as damaging the baize enough that it needed replacing - thus delaying the match for 24hrs, the protester increased electricity and heating consumption for when the match was resumed the following day - with the folk travelling for a second time to see the same match also taking their toll on the environment. Add to that the electricity used by Henry having his turn at the table, and the fact that the bag inside him will also have had to be replaced, along with the general annoyance at the protestor's hypocrisy, and you have an example of what Just Stop Oil may originally have felt was good publicity, becoming bad publicity.