communications

PR that’s shiny - one car wash at a time

It’s been a crazy week. I was hosting (with my team of course) one of the most engaging photographer/ filmmaker siblings in the world - National Geographic Channel’s Jeff and Pete Hutchens - who were in Malaysia. We had a lot of fun with them and the public loved them … but that’s another story.

Because they were in town, we literally spent days on end planning, delivering on and keeping on track a host of activities in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Now if you have been in Malaysia recently you’d know that we’re seeing torrential downpours hitting the city almost every evening. A nightmare for traffic and timing.

An even greater problem when it comes to keeping a car shiny and clean. My car went through a couple of days like that and ended up looking like something that had been off road - covered in mud and grime - rather then just through the city. Pulling into the basement car park of the J.W Marriott Hotel in the heart of the city I faced and enjoyed a great day. The next day wasn’t looking too hot though as I had an early morning meeting, it was 3 a.m. and there was no way I was going to get the car cleaned in time.

Walking towards the car I had to stop and double check that it was mine though as the car had been cleaned. No mud. No grime. It was sitting there all clean and shiny just waiting for me - at 3 a.m.

On the windshield I found a little printed card from the housekeeping department that informed me that the hotel had noticed that my car had been in the hotel all day and that it needed a clean. As I had been there late they had taken the liberty of cleaning it for me.

Now this is public relations at its best. I left with a tremendously improved impression of the hotel - one that had already been strengthened over the previous couple of days. And as you can guess - this story is going to be repeated to a whole bunch of people.

All for the price of a little cue card and a car wash.

Do you have examples of other brands/ organisations that have surprised you with these kinds of little deeds that were as thoughtful, appropriate or just plain psychic inreading and delivering on your needs?

© 2008 Journeys Through The Line.