Center Parcs create a right royal mess

Issue: How to appropriately mark the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 

In response to the death of Her Majesty QEII, family resort operator Center Parcs attracted negative media attention and mocking for announcing they would hoof all visiting families out of their five UK sites. The operator eventually reversed course, but not before the damage was done.

Context

Businesses across the United Kingdom are altering their services and operations to accommodate the official period of mourning and upcoming funeral of QEII. Some of these decisions are attracting ridicule. For example, the Met Office said it would be limiting its weather tweeting out of respect for the death of the Queen. But it was family resort operator Center Parcs that went viral, with the planned shutdown of its sites drawing opprobrium and waves of negative media attention.

The Center Parcs ‘line to take’

“Following the announcement of the date of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, we have made the decision to close all our UK villages on Monday 19 September at 10am as a mark of respect and to allow as many of our colleagues as possible to be part of this historic moment. Guests who were due to arrive on Monday 19 September should not travel, we will reopen on Tuesday 20 September to welcome guests. All impacted guests will receive an email from us today. Please visit our website for additional information.”

Line review

It’s easy to dunk on someone who’s so obviously ballsed up their response, but that’s not why we’re here. Here’s where and why we think Center Parcs’ response went awry:

To begin, Center Parcs forgot their primary audience. The point of corporate communications is to serve your stakeholders. This may be clients, colleagues or customers. It is not an entire nation. This isn’t to say the two can’t or mustn’t align, but if there is to be conflict between the two, you should serve your primary paying audience first.

In this case, parents pay a lot of money and plan months ahead to visit Center Parcs. To have a spanner thrown in those works at short notice was always going to generate friction. It was easily anticipated. Because if you know anything about parents, and Center Parcs should, you know they’re a shouty bunch. Cross them at your peril. 

If the Center Parcs concern was that people would delay their arrivals because of the funeral or cancel a trip, they should have let their normal business practices handle those contingencies and cancellations. And if, as stated, Center Parcs was really shutting down to allow ‘as many of our colleagues as possible to be a part of this historic moment’, where is the evidence of that desire? Were they facing mass worker desertion absent a shutdown? Could they not have organised events on site to allow people to watch, if desired, including staff? Did they really have to reach for the nuclear option? Some simple internal communications could have avoided this. 

The decision smacks of a desire to follow the herd. Center Parcs saw other businesses altering hours and operations and appear to have worried about how they would be perceived if they didn’t follow suit. But the Queen’s legacy also includes steadfastness and service, something Center Parcs should have emulated in their response. And instead of reversing course fully, Center Parcs are still trying to thread some imaginary needle, granting access to the grounds themselves but restricting access to amenities. 

Memo to Center Parcs: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.

Line rating:

Blinder

Strong

Does the job

Problematic

Piss poor ✅

Red Bull Stuck in the Pits

Issue: Redbull’s (lack of) response to Nelson Piquet’s racist remarks

Three time Formula 1 Champion and former Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet made (undeniably) racist remarks about seven time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, referring to him as what translates to the n-word in English. Yikes.

At the time of writing, almost every team and driver in F1 has put out statements condemning racism in all forms and standing by Lewis Hamilton.

Context

Calling all F1 fans, old and new, cast your mind back to Summer 2021 and the ‘incident’ between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen at Silverstone which saw the Dutchman spin off the grid in a high-speed, highly dangerous fashion and which threw the Drivers Championship wide open and attracted much attention regarding Hamilton’s role in being “predominantly to blame for the incident”.

Now back to the present day – Nelson Piquet’s extremely derogatory comments about Hamilton’s role in the crash, made on a podcast appearance last year, have come to light. He also happens to be the father of Kelly Piquet who is, wait for it, the long-term girlfriend of 2021 champion Max Verstappen, the same Max Verstappen involved in the above situation.

For context, this is not the first time that Piquet has attracted unwanted attention. It was only last year that eyebrows were raised when he chauffeured the far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Independence Day. And back in his driving days he not only publicly questioned racing legend Ayrton Senna’s sexuality referring to him as “the Sao Paulo taxi driver” but also made offensive comments about British driver Nigel Mansell’s wife.

One guess for the team and driver who have yet to respond? That’s right, Red Bull and Max Verstappen have remained silent on the issue, despite the fact that Red Bull Racing just fired their reserve driver Juri Vips for using a racial slur during an online live stream…go figure.

The ‘line to take’

N/A

Line review

Our initial response: You should know better.

Well, considering we don’t need to break down tone, choice of words or length let’s turn to the obvious: is no response a good response? In this case, absolutely not.

While it is understandable that hitting out against your future father-in-law is an uncomfortable place to find oneself, it is no excuse to stay silent. Furthermore, for the Red Bull team, just because one of your drivers is dating this man’s daughter, you don’t get carte blanche to say nothing, particularly given past indiscretions.

Lest we forget the ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘End Racism’ campaign F1 championed in the 2020 season, where drivers and team members frequently sported shirts, badges, and even took the knee on occasion. Oh wait, that’s right Verstappen remained standing. Oh and wasn’t there that incident where Red Bull Racing had to fire three top executives, including their North America CEO Stefan Kozak, after a racist map of the world was displayed at a conference? Looks like it’s not just Piquet who has previous…

You would think that a company that has a poor track record (excuse the pun) when it comes to tackling racism would be desperate to demonstrate its credentials by facing the issue head on and spearheading the collective response. Perhaps they consider their weak statement after the firing of Vips as adequate fodder in neutralising the situation and acting as a blanket statement; killing two racist birds with one Pirelli sized stone without having to address the more inflammatory statement.

Well, we’ll tell you one thing for free, it hasn’t worked. Twitter is ablaze with F1 fans, and more importantly Red Bull/Verstappen fans, dismayed at the lack of an immediate response and even more so at the indication that there won’t be a statement at all. The clock is ticking; the more they delay, the more attention they draw to themselves and the worse the fallout gets.

It is needless to say that with the majority of teams and drivers rallying behind Hamilton, it could make for an interesting and possibly tense paddock at the upcoming Silverstone Grand Prix this weekend. It is almost guaranteed the press will hone in on Verstappen and Red Bull if they still haven’t made a statement by the weekend. Watch this space to see how they respond under pressure.

Line rating:

Blinder

Strong

Does the job

Problematic

Piss poor ✅

It’s clear no ‘lessons have been learned’ about Partygate

Issue: ‘Partygate’ (again)

The long-awaited Sue Gray report into the Downing Street lockdown parties is now live for all to see.

Context

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been hammered for months over his rumoured (and confirmed) attendance at a series of lockdown rule-breaking gatherings/parties/coming togethers during the Covid-19 pandemic. His responses to press or MP enquiries have not been consistent or forthcoming. Johnson is also the first prime minister to have broken the law while in office, receiving a fixed penalty notice for his attendance at one gathering.

The lobby is now combing over the Gray report and matching it to Johnson’s past statements (and those of his defenders in the Cabinet and party) to find any inconsistencies. There are also new photos of the parties.

The ‘line to take’

“I commissioned this report to set the record straight and allow us all to move on. I accept full responsibility for my failings. I am humbled by the whole experience. We have learned our lesson.”

(N.B. – the line Johnson actually delivered varied, but all of the component bits were there)

Line review

Our initial response: Zero f**ks given.

As in, this dry, rote, perfunctory statement demonstrates Boris Johnson doesn’t care what ordinary punters think about his lockdown transgressions. This statement isn’t for the families who couldn’t visit their loved ones as they lay dying in hospital.

Our more considered response: While most of the statement is demonstrably untrue, it does the job. Barely.

For a start, Johnson didn’t commission Gray’s report ‘to set the record straight’, he commissioned it because he was cornered after weeks of bad news stories. And then there’s the fact he (allegedly) invited Gray to a meeting to ask whether it was necessary to even publish the report, given the police investigation.

‘Allowing us to move on’ really means ‘allowing me to move on’, which isn’t something in Johnson’s purview to grant. Only the people will decide when they can move on. And while many undoubtedly have, those who took the rules seriously and followed them, to the point of not visiting loved ones as they died alone in hospital, probably haven’t moved on.

On the question of accountability, the Prime Minister accepting ‘full responsibility’ for his ‘failings’ is contradicted by his continued presence in his role. To most people, accepting full responsibility means something more than issuing a collection of stiff sentences organised into a dull statement.

The prime minister also claims to have been ‘humbled by the whole experience’. This is also, mind you, the same prime minister who attended all of these parties after nearly dying of Covid. Humbled? Fat chance. He’s only ‘humbled’ because he got caught.

That said, job one in these situations is to not add any fuel to the fire or open up new avenues of enquiry. On this count, the statement does the job. The Westminster lobby will see nothing much new and judge the statement according to that narrative frame. What’s more, with the Met Police having decided not to levy further fines, and Sue Gray declining to investigate the so-called ‘flat party’ following Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain’s departures, this appears to be the last gasp of new info for Partygate.

What the Westminster bubble might miss, however, is that people who haven’t followed every twist and turn will instead be focusing on the big picture: that a Prime Minister who made the rules they had to live by during a difficult time didn’t abide by them and didn’t care that his team (who knew better) chose not to adhere to them, either. And people don’t like being mugged off.

Line rating:

Blinder

Strong

Does the job ✅

Problematic

Piss poor