Diary: Roofers make a clean breast of press pack titillation

A tale from the ’no such thing as bad publicity’ stable.

It has come to my attention that the National Federation of Roofing

Contractors is under fire for a press pack it produced for the

Interbuild exhibition two weeks ago. Why? It features various parts of

female anatomy in conjunction with some of London’s most famous skylines

- notably, St Paul’s and Big Ben.

Legs, bums and tums might be acceptable as part of an aerobics workout,

but their use in the press pack has prompted accusations of a ’PR

disaster’ from Sandi Rhys Jones, chair of the Government’s working group

on equal opportunities in the construction industry.

She told Construction News the press pack was ’tacky, entirely

inappropriate and offensive’.

NFRC promotions and exhibitions manager David Hathaway told me the pack

had done what it was meant to: ’We might have got it wrong - but it has

got us noticed. We did it tastefully and it’s been taken the wrong

way.’

He also pointed out that the packs produced with the illustrations were

all picked up by journalists at the show - and those without

ignored.

As for the future - will he be taking professional PR advice next

time?

’A waste of money,’ says Hathaway cheerfully.

So we’ll take that as a no, then?