Fishburn Hedges’ tribute to the Fab Four on Abbey Road’s famous zebra
crossing (PR Week 24 November) won them a plug in the Evening Standard.
But the mean-spirited headline ‘Drab Four cross the road!’ wasn’t quite
what F-H’s media relations guru Guy Corbet had in mind.
I am told he went quite pale when he first saw the headline and realised
the paper was not taking the album cover copy in the spirit in which it
was intended.
‘It’s not good,’ Corbet told a colleague, ‘and I’ve got my annual review
in 15 minutes’. Luckily, all was well. Splendid, in fact. John Williams,
who was the white-suited John Lennon on the copycat cover, was so
chuffed he did a little jig to the new company anthem, ‘Sing if you’re
glad to be grey, sing if you’re happy that way.’
