When the news is bleak
Are you, like me, suffering from low-level daily anxiety? I feel that every morning on the Today Programme, there are new figures and reports on the cost-of-living crisis, strikes, energy bills, food shortages and more. It’s enough to make me throw the duvet back over my head. |
Sadly, that’s not really an option when you work on a daily newspaper, nor if your job is to promote somebody or something. Which got me thinking about how you can sell when people aren’t buying… I think the answer comes, oddly, from fashion and beauty. It’s often been written that when the economy takes a dive, hemlines go up. Whether that is really backed up by facts I’m not sure; ditto sales of brightly coloured lipstick in a recession, but I like that way of thinking. When it comes to food and drink, little treats are perfect. Whether it’s extolling the virtues of a fixed-price bargain lunch or gorgeous wines in smaller formats – for the middle-class crowd – or the ‘best of the best’ in the discount stores for a wider audience, these are good to know about. As I often say when people imagine that features departments have it easy – newsdesks see what’s happening in the world and write it down, features have to find an angle, think visually, find case studies and/or products and write with great flair. It’s harder to do that when the news is pretty bleak, so let’s work together on the little sparks worth celebrating. |
What Lisa Thinks…
“I liked the mix of stats, opinion and suggested lines for a feature/interview in this press release on, of all things, milk.”