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Regional daily’s toy story exposes company’s ‘big fib’

A regional daily has poked fun at a toy shop chain due to open on its patch – weeks after it denied it had any plans to do so.

Blackpool daily The Gazette first learned of retailer Smyths’ plans to open a store in the town back in December after inspecting planning documents.

But when the newspaper approached the company for a comment, it was met with a flat denial.

This week journalists got their own back by with a tongue-in-cheek report on the company’s announcement that it would be opening in the town after all.

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Parodying Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear’s slogan ‘to infinity and beyond,’ the paper headlined its report ‘to insincerity and beyond.’

The new 23,000 sq ft store up, to be built on the site of a former soccer centre, is due to open in April.

Deputy editor Andy Sykes said:  “We were first contacted by upset parents concerned about the closure of the football facility. They told us staff had been made aware it was to be taken over by a toy firm.

“We checked council planning documents which proved the firm, Smyths, had indeed applied. Furthermore, the company was advertising online for a Duty Manager.

“So we were a little bit perplexed when we were told there was no plans for a Smyths toy store on the site. Despite highlighting the planning permission and job advert, the company maintained it knew nothing about it.

“When they got in touch this week to say it was moving here after all we thought we would have a bit of fun.

“The excuse for this big fib was ‘We have a number of stores in planning and our property team do not like to officially announce store openings without confirmed access and opening dates.’

“All rather pathetic really so we thought we’d have a gentle poke at their expense – not least because parents who we originally spoke to knew the real story more than a month ago.”

Added Andy:  “Designer Kimberley Mogg at the Sheffield hub did a great job and it lifts what otherwise may have been a page with a dull file shot of the exterior of the building.”

Smyths Toys has 85 stores nationwide.

11 comments

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  • February 5, 2016 at 10:29 am
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    Delightful …
    Always good to take the mick out of pompous/unhelpful/obstructitve PRs. You do wonder though if the Gazette writer who approached Smyths asked for info on the proposed store (investment, jobs, etc) or just asked when the store was opening, because the response appears to be an answer to the latter question, not the former.

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  • February 5, 2016 at 10:34 am
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    Two pages of glorious free publicity for Smyths’ new store. Result! As for the public… most couldn’t give a Mr Potato Head what the company told the Gazette, sorry, The Gazette, in December.

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  • February 5, 2016 at 10:50 am
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    Pointless and self-absorbed. Not the PR response, but the article and it’s treatment. They didn’t want to announce it yet so didn’t – so what? Who outside of the newspaper’s own staff cares?

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  • February 5, 2016 at 11:23 am
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    Good story from the Gazette, personally I would have been harder on them – why is their PR lying in the face of obvious evidence? That kind of pr approach is what gives the industry a bad name.

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  • February 5, 2016 at 12:58 pm
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    Apart from the apostrophe in its, I agree with everything “So What” has written. No readers will care about what some two-bit PR person said to the paper a while back. The paper’s news values are drowning in a sea of their own self-importance, if this is anything to go by.

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  • February 5, 2016 at 1:38 pm
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    I’m with the newspaper on this one. A good, worthwhile article which caught the business out telling a stupid, pointless lie.

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  • February 5, 2016 at 2:21 pm
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    Pointless and self-absorbed – just like yourself then ‘So what’.
    Anyway, I think it was a funny and clever dig. Well done.

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  • February 5, 2016 at 5:05 pm
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    I hope they asked Disney to use their IP protected trademarked toy.

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  • February 6, 2016 at 7:14 am
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    On the face of it, this looks like poor PR. A simple holding statement from them, saying they await the outcome of the planning app, would have sufficed. Usually these sorts of stories come about when a landlord seeks planning permission and once gained then gets a tenant; ie Smyths. But if the company is landlord and tenant, an applies for planning permission in its own name, then giving a misleading response to a media enquiry just makes them look clueless. Probably needed someone with backbone in the press office to tell the jumped up local manager that they couldn’t keep it a secret. Either that or the press office is useless.

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  • February 6, 2016 at 5:34 pm
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    The newspaper had to go along this line or look ridiculous. Otherwise it would look to readers as though it hadn’t done its job properly and was contradicting itself. When a PR department gives lies to straight questions, they must be shown to be liars.

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