World Cup Fever
Rio Ferdinand supporting 1Goal
Claire Thompson, Freelance PR Consultant, Waves PR
Here we go, here we go, here we go…
World Cup Fever has already started. The jokes are flying, and scarcely an hour goes by without a World Cup/England supporters joke passing on of my many ‘in’ boxes.
For PR consultants, it’s a double edged sword – for print media, and to some extent broadcast, scarcely a news story will be published unless it has some link, somewhere to the World Cup/England’s chances. Even the most tenuous of links will go further than anything without the ‘WC’ mention. Not until England’s chances are thwarted will normal service resume.
Press meetings and conferences will all be carefully times to avoid clashes. Branded goods will be punted and in scarce supply – until that is, England is no longer competing, at which point any World Cup story will find itself spiked quicker than a news story about paperclips in new colours.
(I love the amount of goods and services on sale offering them for free if England wins. Doubles the angst of fans, whilst, no doubt, insurers are out hexing the ankles of England’s finest.)
Despite being on a football pitch (as a spectator) every Saturday morning (yes, even though it’s not football season, the snow in January means some – junior – teams are still playing catch up, and it’s tournament time), I’ve never been a huge football fan. But there’s something about the ‘beautiful game’ when played at its best that’s utterly compelling.
So Good Luck to England. I’d love to be in South Africa just now (or indeed at any time!).
And Good Luck too to Queen Rania of Jordan, whose 1Goal campaign has resulted in plans for a high-level international summit before the end of the World Cup — specifically to challenge world leaders to guarantee quality education for the 72 million children around the world who are still out of school.
The campaign offers some smart ways to help ensure that this time’s World Cup earns bonus points. Over eight million people have pledged their support by signing up: http://www.join1goal.org/; and we can all become refs by yellow carding leaders and sending messages to encourage them to make more than pledges to help education become a reality: www.join1goal.org/r/yellowcard.
Or, if you’re already lucky enough to be in Jo’Burg, join Thursday’s march: 1GOAL- March for a “Quality Public Education for ALL”.
Let’s hope this is the best World Cup ever.
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Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/1GOAL
Twitter: http://twitter.com/join1goal
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- Google infected by World Cup fever (go.theregister.com)
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Tags: charity, citizen journalism, education, fun, PR, press conference, press release, public relations
just because I can! | claireatwaves | 
June 9, 2010 7:05 pm
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