unicornnews: Bomb plot challenge for Lucozade PR

The Guardian’s Patrick Barkham has been considering the possible PR issues for the makers of energy drink Lucozade after it was revealed that it was their bottles three terrorists planned to use in a plot to blow up seven planes.

Details of the canisters in which Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Tanvir Hussain and Assad Sarwar planned to smuggle hydrogen peroxide bombs onto seven flights from the UK to the US were revealed as the three plotters were found guilty of a terrorist plot. It was this plot, foiled by British authorities in 2006, which resulted in a crack down on hand luggage at airports and the ban stopping passengers from taking bottles of liquid onto planes.

Although only some of the trio’s planned bombs would have used Lucozade bottles, it was one of the revelations most widely reported of their trial, leading to Barkham’s paper to call the plotters the ‘Lucozade Bombers’.

Barkham writes: “The fact that the terrorists also used bottles of Oasis has been less reported. ‘The Oasis Bombers’ just doesn’t have the same menace to it. They would have had artistic differences and never got their plot off the ground. What if they had used smoothie bottles? Headline writers would really struggle with ‘The Innocent Bombers’”.

While observing that smaller edgier brands might quietly like the association, and the increase in press mentions it delivers, it seems unlikely Lucozade owners GlaxoSmithKline will appreciate people linking their product with such a serious potential crime.

So much so, PR man Mark Borkowski told Barkham he reckons the brand’s PR team would have been having crisis meetings this week. He told the paper: “You can see ‘Mock The Week’ having great fun with it but it’s too uncomfortable for the parent company. The problem is these brands are owned by enormous companies who are incredibly nervous because media have a morbid curiosity about kicking them”.

We suspect Lucozade’s strategy will be to let the association run its course, hope it drops out of the public consciousness as quickly as possible, and then return with some positive messages of its own later in the year.

Posted Thursday September 10 2009 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: Consumer PR