The PR team at Waddingtons used imagination to generate prolonged press
coverage of Cluedo’s anniversary by picking up on the disappearance of
its inventor, says Jonathan Shore, a director at Consolidated
Communications
‘Don’t worry about the PR angle - we’ve got an anniversary coming up...’
Words usually guaranteed to induce a sinking feeling in even the most
hardened PR account handler. When the product has sold 150 million
copies in 23 countries over 50 years, it raises the stakes without
making placing the story any easier. With a product as well known as
Cluedo what else is there left to say?
So step forward Antony Pratt (or not, as it ultimately turned out), who
invented the game in the late 1940s and with whom Waddingtons had lost
touch. Here was a story for the amateur sleuth in all of us - where was
Antony Pratt? Could he be found in time for the anniversary
celebrations? A nationwide search was mounted - via press release. The
public were urged to call a hotline number with the gen on Mr Pratt
while company spokespeople proclaimed ‘honestly, this isn’t a publicity
stunt’.
There was especially good coverage for the evolving story of the non-
stunt in the Daily Telegraph - understandable interest from Colonel
Mustard’s paper of choice. The story kept its momentum with the sad news
that Antony Pratt died in 1994, but Waddingtons were able to track down
both Mr Pratt’s daughter and great nephew, who were invited in his stead
to the commemorative party.
Given the irresistible nature of the story (and that unlike many PR
concoctions it was more than a one-day wonder) it is surprising that
they didn’t generate even more coverage. Is the fate of Professor Plum
with a candlestick in the library too whimsical for the 1990s?
The only niggle I can summon up is that some of the PR material could
have had greater confidence in the strength of the story. The press
materials struggled under a kitchen sink of product trivia. Good to know
that the first World Cluedo Championships were held in Torquay (where
else?) in 1990 and that the CD-ROM format of the game was launched in
1994.
But perhaps such a perspective on useful background colour is just the
jaundiced view of a habitual Cluedo loser. The initiative demonstrated
imagination in a way that above-the-line activity rarely can - and no
doubt for a fraction of the cost.
