Let’s kick things off with the story making waves across the world this week, the Paradise Papers. The worldwide investigation into a leak of 13.4m files from two offshore service providers and 19 tax havens’ company registries, has revealed how some of society’s biggest names and companies have been hiding their wealth. There have been some high-profile individuals named and shamed in the documents, with everyone from the Queen to Lewis Hamilton being left red-faced by the revelations. Some reputational repair and crisis management may be in order for many as information continues to come out.

Moving on to sport, it’s been an embarrassing week for the ATP. Firstly, the organisation was forced to apologise after the draw ceremony for the Next Gen Finals was branded ‘sexist’ and a ‘disgrace’ after players were made selected female models to reveal who their opponent will be. Things then got worse for the governing body when organisers announced the wrong order of play for the tournament, resulting in angry fans complaining as they were left with tickets for the wrong matches. It just goes to show that even an organisation as big as the ATP can’t afford to become complacent and consider the bigger picture before progressing with future stunts.

Finally, it is left to social media to provide us with our PR success story for the week. A Tweet from a Mr George Armstrong went viral this week after he revealed to followers that he had received a letter from travel agency Flight Centre saying he had booked first class flights from London to the Maldives. However, this was all just a prank, much to the relief of Mr Armstrong. At the bottom of the letter there was another note, saying: “George, we’re just kidding. We’ve found you’re [sic] driving license (enclosed) outside our shop and thought you might need it.” George shared pictures of the letter, which so far has been retweeted nearly 50,000 times. A small gesture of goodwill certainly goes a long way.

Posted: 14/11/2017