PR practitioners have been congratulating the smart cookie behind a spoof health and safety campaign about the dangers of biscuits that has created valuable publicity for a leading biscuit manufacturer.
Northern Foods devised a hoax questionnaire, which it sent out to 5,849 local government officers across the UK, as part of a marketing drive for its Fox's Rocky bar.
It also created a fictitious industry body, the British Biscuit Advisory Board (BBAB), to raise awareness about responsible biscuit choices and promote a safer and more enjoyable biscuit experience for consumers.
And nearly 500 gullible council workers swallowed the tasty piece of PR fayre hook, line and sinker.
More than 800 council employees followed the link to the questionnaire, with 437 health and safety conscious officers taking the trouble to complete it.
Four credulous councils are known to have been so taken in by the campaign that they issued safety guidelines on safe biscuit consumption and one authority is even believed to have enforced supervised tea breaks in the interest of safety.
The public has a voracious appetite for comical tales of health and safety gone mad, so it came as no surprise that the story grabbed extensive coverage in the national press.
And Northern Foods can now look forward to reaping the rewards of some 5-star publicity, thanks to an ingenious PR stunt that truly takes the biscuit.
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