Still with the Daily Telegraph, I’m not sure what Volkswagen was expecting when it booked an ad feature promoting its involvement in Cowes Week.
Yes, it got the required happy fluffy stuff courtesy of Kate Laven to go with its 15×8, but it can’t have expected the fragrant Celia Walden to wade in directly above on the same page with a diatribe about how utterly horrid sailing on a racing boat really is.
In a piece headed ‘Life on the loathsome wave …”, Ms Walden spent the best part of 1,000 words bemoaning the fact that she got wet, nobody offered her a Bacardi and that she stumbled off seven hours later ‘dead-eyed, knees bruised, face and hair encrusted with salt”. Even to a regional hick (or hack) it was an act of commercial suicide.
Funnily enough, VW got a full page in the sports supplement two days later, this time extolling its wonderfully philanthropic involvement in the event. Were the two things connected? I don’t know, but as dear old JJ would say, I think we should be told.
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