A rather depressing statistic to start the morning: voter turnout in the local elections is estimated at 32%, the lowest in 12 years.

Turnout for the UK general elections has been on the decline for decades, just 65.5% in 2010. The first round of the French presidential elections saw 80% of the population come to the polls, we haven’t seen those sorts of numbers since 1951.

Given that the economy is in turmoil, we’ve had another year of revelations about certain political leaders and witnessed uprisings on a global scale, do our local communities really have no interest in who leads them? I can’t believe that to be the case.

Bearing in mind that Birmingham was also voting for an elected mayor (results due in this afternoon), what hope do we have of garnering support for a new system if people aren’t currently engaged in the very basics of the voting process?

It’s clear that voter apathy is growing, and that’s a dangerous situation to be in. Whatever your political leanings, not using your right to vote chips away at democracy and inevitably means that our leaders will not reflect the views of the majority – just those that could be bothered.

So the million dollar question: what should be done?

Here are a few thoughts that came through Twitter this morning:

@annekadeva: Make sure political education is actually taught in schools

@gabysslave: try to also increase civic responsibility

@anthonyBrum: compulsory voting?

@AmySKiernan: The lack of engagement from the candidates & the poor communication from councils played a massive part – it’s so frustrating!

Taking to one side the party political campaigning, the right to vote needs a major PR push. Apathy breeds apathy, so we need to engage with a new generation of voters. How about every 18 year old receiving a birthday card from the Electoral Commission?  Roadshows at schools and colleges? Relevant campaigns across platforms that drive the importance of voting in itself? Is this happening? I can’t see any evidence of it.

I’ve heard many people say that what we lack are the inspirational candidates to vote for. How will we encourage a new breed of leaders to enter politics if they don’t engage with the very process of democracy in itself?

Image: Ker Robertson / Getty Images (January 20, 2009).

With the Formula 1 season having kicked off in the last fortnight, whispers continue to filter out of F1 gossip columns about the possibility of Volkswagen Group entering the sport through one of its various brands.

With F1 abandoned by volume manufacturers Honda, BMW and Toyota in recent years, and Renault involvement pared down to supplying customer engines, it would be easy to argue that major players in the automotive world simply don’t see the return-on-investment of this pinnacle of motorsport. In 2012, those F1 teams that are owned by car makers, Mercedes aside, are low-volume producers looking to boost their sporting credentials and ingratiate their road-legal offerings with buyers – McLaren, Caterham, Marussia and, of course, those old-hands at Ferrari. To anyone who chimes up about Lotus at this point: I really don’t have time to explain.

The stage is set, then, for VW Group to join this cast-list, for it has no shortage of smaller brands that fit this description as a small-time player. Porsche is too mainstream, and Bugatti – whose Veyron road car could outrun anything in F1 in a straight line - too bonkers, which leaves Bentley (roughly on par with Ferrari in terms of production numbers) and Lamborghini as potential options. Volkswagen could, however, reap the biggest rewards simply by putting its own badge on the nose of its car.

The German maker is no stranger to motorsport – its Skoda brand has been a mainstay of the World Rally Championship for some years – but this (rather excellent) blog from F1 journalist Joe Saward points out how little sense it makes to invest smaller amounts into lots of such lower-profile motorsport disciplines considering their smaller reach. And, while privateer teams in F1 exist simply for the thrill of racing, manufacturers at least have the trade-off of developing useful new technologies for their mass-market products. I doubt rallying achieves the same (unless, of course, we’re about to see a new generation of cars featuring roll-cages and half a dozen foglamps).

The business case for Volkswagen in Formula 1 is simple: new rules as of 2014 will limit the capacity of the cars’ engines to fuel-efficient and turbocharged 1.6s – not enormously dissimilar to the power-plant under the bonnet of the average family car, the likes of which Volkswagen has been perfecting in its Golf and Polo models under the TSI badge. Applied to small-capacity engines, ‘TSI’ indicates to buyers their new cars are both turbocharged and supercharged, fusing high performance with low emissions. Words like these keep governments happy – and using F1 to develop such new technologies might just keep it relevant in times of soaring fuel costs. Suddenly you have to wonder why VW is spending its money on rallying instead.

If you’ve been reading between the lines, you might have been able to pick up on what I’m getting at: while the best approach to PR is often one which provides wave upon wave of coverage from across a number of platforms, it’s equally true that, every now and again, one focused project making a really big splash can work just as well.

I’ve been back and forth about whether to add to the hype surrounding Pinterest.com. It may well be a very useful, fun and engaging addition to social networking, it’s just, well, I can’t really be bothered with it.

The site has been around for a couple of years but has shot into the limelight recently thanks to a few high profile blog posts and news articles about the Tumblr-like social network.

With lots of articles that detail exactly how to use Pinterest, it’s all fairly reminiscent of the hype around Quora last year, and hopefully it will be given time to grow and develop.

I can see the attraction of the site; it’s a more accessible, social way of creating mood boards for example, or collaborating with someone to draw up a wish list (i.e. a bride and groom-to-be, pulling together a wedding gift list). 

For brands too, it can be great for collating product ranges in one place to showcase to customers and, on the face of it, I can quite easily see the rationale behind the site. 

Images are a proven means of increasing engagement. A recent Facebook study for example, found that links which included a thumbnail image in the link preview received 65% more "likes" and 50% more comments than those without images. 

I’m struggling, however, to see how quick and easy it will be to keep updated – a characteristic that perhaps Pinterest needs in order to become widely popular. Perhaps I can’t get into it because it’s not aimed at me, having primarily been adopted as the social platform for women. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important for people to explore new ways to interact online, but I think there is a risk, especially in the case of Pinterest, that people will dive in, have a quick look and dive out again, claiming to have ‘tried it and it’s not for me’. This can be seen in the latest stats from comScore, in which Pinterest actually lost users in the UK in January.

I’d also perhaps be more inclined to explore Pinterest further, if there wasn’t such an explosion of ‘Pin’ related terms that seem to be shouting at me from all corners of the web.

Currently you can pin a picture to your Pinterest pin board and then use PinPuff to measure your Pinfluence. There’s also something called PinClout which, it seems, does much the same thing (of which, I’m not entirely sure).

As an aside, I think influence measuring tools should be offering more to their users, perhaps taking a similar route to PeerIndex who recently announced PeerPerks, a new service that offers freebies and discounts to key brand influencers.

As for Pinterest, I’ll keep an eye on its progress. But later - my head’s spinning – I feel I’m in need of a lie down… and a Pint.

The rest of the time, the trending topics are largely the domain of idiotic boyband fanatics, ‘Beliebers’ (whatever those are) and other items that demonstrate little more than the public’s collective inability to spell. Today, though, the Great British public demonstrated that irony is still alive and well in the 21st century – unlike Gregg Jevin.

Earlier this morning, Michael Legge, a comedian with around 10,000 followers, announced that a man whom he had just invented – Gregg Jevin – had died. The tributes to this imaginary man began to flood in, all with tongue firmly in cheek, with notable support from other comedians including Charlie Brooker and Sarah Millican. #RIPGreggJevin began to trend within hours.

Then something unexpected happened. Serious organisations started joining in and demonstrated that even ‘the suits’, as Adele might call them, have a sense of humour. The Radio Times’s account announced a night of special programming dedicated to the man’s memory, including tribute programme ‘Oh Well, Never Mind: The Gregg Jevin Story’, while the Royal Albert Hall announced that tickets for his memorial concert will go on sale ‘within weeks’.

Quite what overcame people to such an extent that the country forgot about being serious, if just for a few minutes, I have no idea. But I’m glad it did – it’s a Friday afternoon, after all.

Last Friday, I had a rock and roll evening planned. Seeing the back of a busy week, and experiencing the rarity of being home alone, I decided it would be best to stay in, watch the double bill of Coronation Street, catch up on the latest episode of The Office and have a beer. 

That’s right, I know how to party.

And with it being the weekend, I thought I’d treat myself to a takeaway pizza from Domino’s. The pizza chain had recently promoted a great deal and I thought I’d cash in. 

It was only after looking on their website and checking out their Twitter feed that I realised I was too late – the offer was over, I’d have to pay full whack. 

That wasn’t happening. I was out - I decided to eat something else. How dare they ask me to pay full price. The nerve.

It turns out I was at least correct in hunting for Domino’s deals online. Last week, the pizza chain announced strong figures for 2011 with group revenue increasing 11% to £210m in the year to 25th December 2011. These figures were driven by online sales, which increased by 43% to £183.1m and regularly account for half of all Domino’s daily sales.

I can completely see how those online figures have come about. They have been a busy lot over at Domino’s, partnering with television shows like Red or Black, using Twitter promotional codes, creating iPhone, Android and Windows phone apps and this year, they’re looking to build on that activity further.

Domino’s today announced a partnership with Blinkbox. The movie and TV streaming service, in which Tesco owns a majority stake (80%), has introduced Blinkbox Movie Mondays, a campaign to promote themed movie packages that also provides customers with a 40% discount when they spend £25 or more on- or offline at Domino’s Pizza. 

They are also looking to improve its mobile payments systems by exploring the possibility of customers paying for orders directly from their phone bills or by mobile payments connected to a credit account, such as Orange Quick Tap or Barclay’s Pingit.

And whilst this is fantastic for the consumer, with easier payment methods, and more and more retailers promoting online discounts and offers, it begs the question; why bother ever paying full price again? I touched on this at Christmas when high street retailers took the decision to start sales before the 25th December, and could be the result of companies trying to make their online presence stand out in a bid to claim a share of over-crowded market places.

Online deals and promotions will give the consumer more choice and a better deal, especially as more and more brands utilise the combination of social media and mobile devices, but there is a fear that by constantly offering people money off deals, it will devalue products, meaning people will steer clear of paying a premium price. It certainly means that I’ll be the one doing the cooking on Friday night. 

Or perhaps I just need to get out more.

2. The Tour De France
Well, believe it or not but this hugely popular bike race around France actually started off life as a PR stunt. In 1903, a new French newspaper entitled L’Auto was set-up and appointed prominent cyclist Henri Desgrange as its editor. At the time long-distance cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers, and in order to outshine its rival paper Desgrange organised the longest cycle race around France to date. The race captured the imagination of the public, doubled the circulation of L’Auto and put its rival paper out of business. 100 years later and The Tour De France is still going strong attracting both cyclists, journalists and fans from around the world. Despite changing its name to L’Equipe in 1944, the newspaper also remains popular in France and in 2009 published its 20,000 edition.

3. Calendar Girls
Now hands up who hasn’t heard of/ seen the film/ been to the theatre production of Calendar Girls? Not many I imagine. This is one of my very favourite PR stunts because it’s still very successfully promoting the Women’s Institute around the world. For those that don’t know, in 1999 a group of eleven members of the Women’s Institute in Yorkshire posed nude for a charity calendar with only an assortment of baked goods and flower arrangements to retain their modesty. The calendar was created to help promote their work and raise money for leukaemia research but took the world by storm and has gone on to raise almost £2 million. Julie Walters and Helen Mirren starred in a hit movie about the ladies and a theatre production starring an assortment of female celebrities regularly tours the UK. The best bit – the calendars (albeit an updated 2009 version) are still available today!

4. Bubble wrapped street
Anyone that knows me can vouch for the fact that I am actually quite clumsy which, coupled with the fact that I bruise like a peach, doesn’t bode too well. Therefore you can understand why this particular PR stunt caught my attention. In 2010 the most accident-prone street in Britain (typically my neck of the woods in Worcester) was wrapped in 1,500 sq metres of bubble wrap by Confused.com. The comparison website wrapped everything from cars, trees, pavements and even the garden gnomes on Somerville Road because it was identified as having one of the highest number of car insurance claims in the UK. The stunt was a huge publicity success for the brand and saw Confused.com receive international print and broadcast coverage.

England needs you!

Now, as any of my Rewired colleagues will confirm, I’m not exactly a big sports fan. At a push I’ll watch the odd England game, but that’s as far as it goes. So when the news about Fabio’s resignation broke this week I kind of let it all go over my head, quickly turning over the sports pages when reading the newspapers. 

However, when I stumbled upon a cleverly written ad on job site Reed’s website, I have to say that even I was compelled to read it, and consequently share it with you.

The ad, which was posted by agency Guru, appeals for an England Football Manager, with ‘that win-at-all-costs mentality to take up a high profile, public facing Football Management role with the national team’.

The ad continues giving an overview of what exactly the position will entail and what will be expected from the successful candidate, ‘succeed in a major international tournament (quarter finals or above)’ and ‘beat Germany’ being among the most important.

Once I’d finished chuckling to myself it struck me what an opportune and clever bit of self promotion this actually is. Yes, it continues the ‘should he, or would he be better’ debate in the office, but it also cleverly communicates with its target audience and as a result has us all looking up who this Guru agency is. 

Working in the PR industry, I’m always on the look out for creative and innovative ways to connect my clients with their target audience. This witty and timely piece of promotion is a great example of how thinking outside the box and being quick to respond to breaking news can result in fantastic exposure for yourself or your client.

Now, let me just get my CV in order….highly organised, check; energetic, check; previous international management experience, hummmmm, maybe not!

To read the full ad read here.

It’s the oldest story in the world. Girl meets bread, girl writes to maker of bread and gets lovely letter in response, girl’s mum blogs about it, maker of bread renames product in response to blog going viral and gets massive amount of publicity for free.

Er… what?

In case you’ve missed it, this is the story of little Lily Robinson (aged 3½), who wrote to Sainsbury’s (with a little help from mum) and asked why their tiger bread was named as such when the patterns on the distinctive product more accurately resemble the markings of a giraffe.

Sainsbury’s Chris King wrote a charming reply with the reasoning behind the name and included a £3 gift card for Lily to get some tiger bread of her own. Between the cost of the gift card, postage and Chris’s time, this probably all cost Sainsbury’s no more than £20.

Lily’s mum was so impressed that Sainsbury’s took the time to respond that she shared the story with friends, with pictures of Lily’s letter and Sainsbury’s response side-by-side. Twelve months on, the story of Sainsbury’s excellent customer service has finally gone viral and thousands of voices have been added to Lily’s argument. Today, Sainsbury’s has announced the 75p product had been renamed and was on sale as 'Giraffe Bread'.

The news has already swept the social space much in the same way as the original story, and has been picked up by BBC News, The Sun and many other media outlets. Sainsbury’s PR team have played a blinder: the public are falling over themselves with praise for the decision.

This just goes to show the massive - and deliciously cheap - publicity a consumer brand can get from giving outstanding customer service, and the amount customers seem to appreciate those companies which do. So, next time you’re responding to a customer query, use your loaf.