You and Yours

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You and Yours: Term Time Holidays, Water and Publicity Stunts

Term Time Holidays, Water and Publicity Stunts

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Term Time Holidays, Water and Publicity Stunts

Fines for taking family holidays in term time will rise. What impact will this have?

Fines for taking holidays in term time will rise. We consider the impact. Plus, we put your concerns to the boss of Water UK and explore the latest trends in publicity stunts.

Family holidays can be expensive at the best of times. They can cost thousands more outside term time.  Unsurprisingly many parents take their children out of school for holidays abroad.  Last year councils fined 360,000 who did this.  From August, the government will increase the fines and ask all councils to consider issuing them for these holidays. At the moment fewer than 1 in 5 bother.  What effect will this new approach have?  We find out. 

Many of you got in touch with us with tales of appalling customer service from water companies.  In the last few weeks we’ve heard stories about problems with meters, vastly inaccurate bills and years spent trying to resolve these issues.  We put your frustrations to the boss of Water UK, David Henderson to find out what water companies are doing about these problems and why he thinks your bill should rise by 6% next month. 

Publicity stunts designed to sell us stuff are nothing new.  The first and most influential one was staged by Sigmund Freud’s nephew 95 years ago in New York.  Last week, M&S hung a giant bra off Tower Bridge. It follows a similar stunt by Maybelline featuring tube trains with eyelashes and Herbal Essences covering Big Ben in flowers.  Aside from all being in London,  they all have one thing in common -  none of these spectacles happened in real life. All the images and videos of them were CGI fakes.  Why, when brands are meant to be “authentic” are they pushing out these campaigns? What are they expecting from these stunts? And will we see more of them?  We get the inside story of one campaign to find out.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Julian Paszkiewicz

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