By Juliana Wimmer
In PR, hardly anything is left to chance. Particularly when organising bigger events like press tours or roundtables, every step follows a certain timeline and organisational structure. Who, however, would have thought that all this planning could be thwarted by an elemental yet simple force – the weather.
Johnson King’s three European offices have taken a battering so far this month. First, with the heaviest snow falls for 18 years, London was lost in chaos at the beginning of February: schools and airports were closed, mail was not delivered, buses were suspended and what was still running faced heavy delays and cancellations.
A few days later Paris was hit by extremely high winds. Airports were shut completely for the first time since 30 years and some 400,000 homes left without electricity.
Germany was not spared either. Due to heavy snow falls and icy roads, flights were cancelled and some highways were closed completely, leaving drivers nothing to do but sleep in their cars.
Just try organising a pan-European press event with all this going on.
PR in times of bad weather is by no means simple, but it is just about possible. Just ask Jacqui and Rich (left). Even when a storm prevented journalists AND their spokesperson from turning up to face-to-face meetings, it didn’t compromise media coverage.
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