Are the reactions to the BeautifulPeople.com ‘PR stunt’ OTT?

As someone who works in the PR world, I know how difficult it can be to crack the nationals with one of your clients’ stories. Even if you manage to woo the editor with a kick ass feature synopsis, you then need to fight your corner until the ink has dried on the paper to make sure that the journalist tasked with writing the article actually uses your spokespeople, your case studies and your statistics rather than run away and ‘borrow’ (i.e. steal) your idea without citing your client.  

With this in mind, I stumbled across the article “Dating website for beautiful people dumps 30,000 members” on the Guardian website. The article looks at how the dating website BeautifulPeople.com (which, as the name suggests, is strictly off limits to us mere mortals who should probably walk around with a bag over our heads) has been forced to kick tens of thousands of new members off the site after a computer virus called ‘Shrek’ meddled with the software which sorts the wheat from the chaff of those who are brave (or vain) enough to apply.



Who you callin' ugly?



Now, although the article itself was interesting in an ‘oh em gee I can’t believe people are so shallow, but I wonder if I’m pretty enough to become a member’ kinda way, it was the reader’s comments that especially caught my eye…


EnglishLord: “Ack, why is The Guardian featuring empty PR puff from a media savvy dating company? It’s fine to have celebrity news etc etc but not this pathetic see through rubbish. It denigrates your whole output. Have they paid for this to be featured?”

Craigam: “FFS … whoever was responsible for publishing this as news deserves to be giving a stern talking to. The whole thing – fake virus attack, deliberately provocative quotes, rejected customers desperate to get back “in” is about as sh*t a PR set-up as you could possibly imagine.”



CunnyMonster: “Utter bollocks dreamed up by their PR agency, just like their numerous other totally seethrough stunts. Well done Guardian for participating.”

The latter commentator also went on to point out a case study that appeared in PR Week in December 2010 about how Golden Goose PR, BeautifulPeople.com’s agency, had executed their ‘Festive Fatties’ campaign, which highlighted members of the dating site who had overindulged and got a bit podgy over the Christmas period.



 If these cynical Guardian readers are right and the story was in fact a PR stunt rather than a ‘legitimate news piece’, then the newspaper isn’t the only one to ‘fall’ for it. The story has also appeared on the BBC website, the Telegraph and ABC News – to name but a few.

But hang on a minute… to all those readers who have voiced their disgrace at media outlets reporting on a ‘PR set-up’… can I just ask where you think the majority of your ‘news’ comes from?



All across the world, companies, brands, charities, governments, politicians, celebrities – basically anyone or anything who is or has been in the media spotlight – has some sort of media, marketing, PR or communications person or team working for it/them to ensure their message is delivered in a ‘desirable’ manner. Whether it’s a consultant advising David Cameron on how to react to the latest events in Libya or a publicist telling a not-so-anonymous footballer what to say (or, more likely, what not to say), there is a whole industry driving and shaping local, national and international news agendas.

Granted, some media outlets pride and sell themselves on delivering more ‘newsworthy’ news than ‘PR puff’, but if there is a line, then where do we draw it?