After making our holidays cheaper, Easy Jet is now helping us tackle the burden that is to organise them.

We’ve all been there – already struggling to find a convenient date or place for a simple catch up with our mates, organising holidays with them can quickly turn into a nightmare of emails and planning (and that’s even before discovering that half of them snore).

The new Easy Jet Facebook application ‘Holiday planner’ appears as a lifesaving tool.  It’s quick and easy to use and allows users to select destinations, dates, budgets and invite friends to join the trip.

This is the first time that a travel company is offering full booking facilities through Facebook – it actually makes me wonder why no one else (erm, including me) has thought of it before.

It’s always great to see a brand being involved in social media for other reasons than because all its direct competitors are and they feel they need to do it too.

Easy Jet appears as an innovator (once again) by taking a step further and using social media for e-commerce: a wake up call for other brands to realise that there is a whole range of opportunities behind straightforward campaigns, however successful some of them are.

If you have been working in PR for a couple of years or have dealt with, mingled with or shouted at PR professionals, then you must have come across what is commonly known as ‘a typical wanky PR expression’ – it makes you cringe when you hear it but for some reason you can’t stop using it, especially in front of your clients and it reminds you that, well, PR is also a typical wanky sector and you’re part of it.

After only a short chat amongst my colleagues, I have managed to compile a selection – feel free to use them if they aren’t already part of your PR vocabulary:

1. To ride the tiger
2. Bluesky thinking
3. To push the envelope
4. To step up to the plate
5. To throw it against the wall and see what sticks
6. To pluck the low hanging fruits
7. In a nutshell
8. Ducks in a row
9. To think outside the box
10. To touch base

In the Consumer team, we have recently adopted the term ‘ride the tiger’ as our new mantra – all management books agree that it helps to pull everyone together and brings that extra bit of motivation to a team, and in our case laughter.  We have since noticed that our mantra has taken on a life of its own and has now started an international trend.  Or so it seems.

Celebrities and brands are never very far from each other.  After many stories in the past weeks showing how some sportsmen can terminate sponsorship contracts in more time than sending a naked picture by text message, some PRs clearly still have faith in A-listers.

In fact, Magnum, the yummy ice-cream brand announced last week that Benicio Del Toro, the no less yummy Hollywood actor will be the new face of the new Gold ice cream.  After Eva Longoria and Eva Mendes, it is now our turn ladies to sit back and enjoy these sexy ice-cream ads.

The male opinion on Twitter was quite negative and they didn’t seem to see the connection between the two, whilst the ladies on the other hand are clearly more appreciative.

How do you make sure you choose the right celebrity for your brand?  I believe if the celebrity is credible and its personal story fits the brand, then why not?   In this case, Gold ‘aims to reflect the brand’s indulgence and chocolate credentials’ and ‘the campaign will build on the brand’s positioning as the World’s Pleasure Authority’ according to Unilever which look right on target for Benicio.

LIFE ISN’T ALWAYS MAGICAL FOR DISNEY

Yesterday saw the much-anticipated premiere of Tim Burton’s new movie: Alice in Wonderland.

Every premiere comes as a relief for the director after years of hard work but this one in particular could have had a bitter start with Odeon, the largest cinema chain in the UK, threatening to boycott its release in protest against Disney planning to release the DVD just three months after the cinema opening.  Vue and Cineworld followed at first but soon broke the ranks leaving Odeon alone.

Despite being a huge fan of Disney, Burton (and obviously Johnny Depp), I understand how cinemas can be outraged after spending massive costs on digital technology. 

3D equipment now brings a whole new theatre experience and added to the recession, cinema ticket sales have significantly increased.  It’s not hard to imagine though that some people will be more than happy to cut on this spending if the DVD is available soon after the cinema release.  Disney’s argument is all about combating piracy – if an additional month will affect the box-office takings, I doubt that it will have a real effect on illegal downloads.

No details have been given regarding the agreement which was only reached hours before the premiere but we can only imagine more issues arising between studios and cinemas given the millions of pounds linked to 3D technology, the increasing demand for it and the pressure to reduce the time between cinema and DVD releases.

Disney is still trying to impose in the US, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium – more should follow.

There has been lots written about how Eurostar handled its crisis before Christmas. Here is a personal user experience.

Like many fellow Frenchies, I tried to take the Eurostar to spend Christmas on the other side of the Channel – here’s a summary of my journey…and of Eurostar’s mistakes, customer side.

DAY 1 (Saturday) – St Pancras was a mix of thousands of angry and distressed passengers, French/UK film crews and photographers, policemen, and lost in the middle of this chaos, some Eurostar staff members.

The only information displayed on the Eurostar website announcing that trains were cancelled until lunchtime, passengers kept coming to the station. The situation became quickly unmanageable and an announcement was made asking passengers to ‘leave the station and go home as there’ll be no trains today’…whereas some other staff members claimed that it was only a health & safety measure and some trains might run in the afternoon. So we stayed.

No one really knew where to look for information: the Eurostar website didn’t display any update nor was their Facebook group or what I believed was their Twitter account (#eurostar wasn’t the official one but #little_break – easy to find, huh?)

Me and the lucky ones with Internet access got hopeful when we received an email from Eurostar…only to find out that it was a newsletter promoting special offers. This slight lack of internal communication made us a bit mad.

After waiting 8 hours in freezing temperatures (the Christmas ice sculpture in the hall didn’t move during this time) I finally got in the departure lounge with a ticket for an emergency train which was then cancelled a couple hours later. This time, no Eurostar staff members were at sight, only policemen and cleaners, and an announcement asked us to ‘leave the departure lounge immediately and check Eurostar.com for more information’.

DAY 2 (Sunday) – Eurostar customer service slightly changed their tact and tried to get rid of as many passengers as possible by saying that they didn’t know if there’ll be any trains before Christmas and strongly advising us to ‘find alternative travel arrangements’.

Eurolines coaches were full until 28 December; British Airways, Air France and Easy Jet didn’t have any tickets before 26 December and even then, a one-way to Paris was more expensive than a return to New York; Eurotunnel wasn’t an option as I didn’t have a car and P&O ferries came with a 14-hour journey and nine changes.

From 5pm, hope came back as customer service confirmed every hour that the tests carried out were good and that yes, trains will be running tomorrow, they were just waiting for a timetable. And then at 9pm the news spread that actually, there will be no trains tomorrow. Again.

DAY 3 (Monday) – Managing several communication channels was clearly too hard so the customer service was replaced by a voicemail message inviting customers to check the website for more information. Updates were solely available on their Twitter and blog. No news until 6pm and then, an announcement was made that passengers with tickets for Saturday and Sunday can travel tomorrow. Which meant me, ME! No details were given regarding the number of trains, where they would stop or go, at what time they would depart or arrive.

DAY 4 (Tuesday) – Wake up time: 3.30am, arrival at St Pancras: 4.30am to start waiting…with about 600 people, many of them had spent the night at the station. The first train finally left at 7.30am. We were given sandwiches and bottles of water at Paris Gare du Nord when we finally arrived at noon.

A mother has recently called for a boycott of The Early Leaning Centre who, she claimed is much worse than any other retailers when it comes to the ‘pinkification’ of girls’ toys.

According to the website, Pinkstinks ‘is a campaign and social enterprise that challenges the culture of pink which invades every aspect of girls’ lives.’

It is also backed by Ed Mayo, co-author of Consumer Kids and Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, the network of democratic businesses.

Putting the concept of the campaign aside and whether or not you actually agree with it, you can’t help but notice that what was first the opinion of just one mother of two girls (backed by her sister, a mother of two boys) is slowly but surely turning into an online revolution.

Another example which shows that parents know how to use social media and can easily spread their opinions, rally other parents and make retailers listen to them, whether they want it or not. Between their blog, their Twitter account, their Facebook group, their online shop, and even their newsletter, they are ready to fight and we should all be warned.

If Diane Keaton can't do it, it says it all

An interesting article in this week’s Stylist mentioned a YouGov survey which found that only 12% of mothers wanted to work full-time and 31% did not want to work at all.

Some critics will come sharp and sum up the situation as: after decades of fighting in the name of ‘we want to have it all’, well actually, no they don’t really want it…

It’s not that women have changed their mind; it’s just that it’s not physically and psychologically possible to do both.

If you know any career-focused woman in her mid-thirties with two young kids who can balance both her work and her family life – and I mean balance WELL i.e. doing her job 120% as any career-minded person is expected to do, going home on time, being an available mother who is as dedicated to her chilodren as a mum-at-home will be and a loving wife – well, let me know.

Without being the usual pessimist here, no I don’t think women can have it all if they don’t want to do things half , or worse neglect one, and they have (unfortunately) started to realise it.

Oh it’s not that they haven’t tried – some of them are still, bless them. You can see them running in the tube, exhausted after working on their Blackberry until 11pm (obviously after bathing, feeding, reading stories etc.), some porridge on the blouse, already thinking about what to cook in the evening, what to do this weekend, not forgetting to pick up the dry-cleaning…

Women have had enough and although more men are staying at home and their role in the family is changing, baking cup cakes and reading stories seem much more appealing for many career women than long hours at their desk, and that constant running/lack of time – understandable, if they can afford it, of course.

Those who can’t are stuck in the ‘running-tube/porridge-blouse’ or can go part-time, ideal for someone just looking for a job, slightly disappointing for someone more ambitious.

Is there an actual choice? Not really…