Perhaps the time has come for trade associations to issue guidelines to their members on how to deal with the press - not the trade press, you understand, we’re on the industry’s side - but the nationals and local press.
A seaside arcade in the UK was this week facing banner headlines in a national newspaper for failing to pay out a star prize for redemption tickets to an eight-year-old girl, who had saved all her pocket money to spend on the games in the arcade for months before her holiday.
She’d apparently saved around £300 and won about 13,000 tickets, which the arcade refused to honour for a top prize. The newspaper in question said that this could have been a mobile phone or DVD player. According to her mother, the excuse was that the location was in the course of “pricing up” prizes.
The mother took the arcade to court. The arcade was told to pay the schoolgirl £340. That was on July 4 and, by the newspaper’s publication date - July 27 - the payment still hadn’t been paid. The arcade had not responded to the newspaper’s request for a comment.
On the face of it, that is the worst kind of publicity the industry could possibly get. The other side of the story has not been aired, apparently because the location chose to duck behind the parapet and wait for the furore to die down. If that’s the case, then it’s the wrong policy.
Having been a journalist for 55 years, I know how the newspapers think. They love a chance to pillory the industry and there’s no way back. If the location now gives the newspaper its own side of the story, they’ll be lucky to get a two-inch paragraph buried inside somewhere.
Perhaps it is time for the trade associations to issue guidelines to their members on how to deal with the press, to repeat the top line in this blog. That means not just BACTA (I have no idea whether the location in question is a member), but trade associations across Europe, viz Euromat. Because the attitude of the national and local press differs little towards our industry, whether you are in Blackpool or Bucharest.
Do not duck, don’t try to wriggle out of your responsibilities, don’t make excuses - but DO make sure it doesn’t get to the point that opens up the industry to this kind of negativity.
