Another great example of PR flannel in action. I've started a separate category for these.
It's titled: Press info: Strewth! Drivers Down Under risk huge excess charges on car hire damage from kangaroo crash hazard, warns Insurance4carhire.com
"Holidaymakers hiring a car Down Under are presented with the biggest excess charges for car hire compared to anywhere else in the world, according to independent excess cover provider Insurance4carhire.com. A recent underwriter’s claims report reveals that motorists in Australia incur the highest excess charges in the event of damage to their vehicle, with sums reaching almost £2,000."
... begins the release. It's backed up with some decent stats showing
average excess claims figures in other parts of the world are £558 in the UK, £605
in Ireland and more. All well and good.
Table of average excess claim amounts by I4CH customers
|
Country |
Average Excess Charge |
|
Australia |
£1,080 |
|
New Zealand |
£ 904 |
|
Portugal |
£ 819 |
|
Ireland |
£ 605 |
|
UK |
£ 558 |
|
Italy |
£ 544 |
|
France |
£ 498 |
|
Spain |
£ 340 |
Source: Insurance4carhire.com Dec 2007 - May
2008
I can see the PR 'consultants' at their desks now. Excess
claims, insurance – all rather dull stuff. We need to sprinkle this with
creative PR juice to make those lazy journos wake up! We need an 'angle'! Hmmm.
Australia.?... Of course! KANGAROOS!
Here comes the rest of the release:
"Whilst motorists driving rented cars in European countries
such as France and Italy are likely to have more minor scrapes and bumps, the
hazards of driving in the Antipodes are on a somewhat bigger scale. It may
sound like a stereotypical joke but the risk of colliding with a kangaroo whilst
driving in Australia is actually quite common and this can cause a great deal
of damage to the vehicle. However unlikely you think it is that this will
happen to you, the chances of hitting an animal on the road are very real and
the cost of repairing the damage can be enormously expensive." (underlining is mine)
And the statistic to back this up?
Recent figures from Australian motoring authority NRMA
show that of 9,000 claims for animal–related collisions in 2007 in the state of
New South Wales, 7,000 of them involved kangaroos.
How does this statistic show that the likelihood of colliding with a kangaroo whilst driving in Australia is 'quite common'? All it tells me is that IF I hit an animal it's highly likely to be kangaroo. The figures are completely out of context. For them to mean anything I need to know how likely it is that I will hit an animal in the first place – what proportion of insurance claims in NSW in 2007 involved collision with an animal?
I've not been able to find out. But NSW is one of Australia's most built-up states. I've driven around it quite a bit and I didn’t
see many kangaroos. (If you were in the Northern Territory with its miles and
miles of unfenced roads in the bush, maybe you'd see a few more). NSW is Australia's most populous state with a population of nearly 7 million so there
will be literally millions of car journeys taking place there each year. And
there were 7000 collisions with kangaroos in NSW in 2007. I'd say that's not a huge number
at all. Is it really that likely that if you drive a hire car in NSW you
will be involved in a collision with a kangaroo?
In my opinion… NO
I do wonder sometimes if people in PR think of this kind of
stuff as a bit of a game. Have some fun pushing a product at the journalist
community; dress up dry stats to make them more palatable… But this is a
serious issue. It happens far too much in my opinion, plucking a statistic from
nowhere to illustrate the point you want to make rather than providing proper,
contextualised data. It's also an indictment on journalists for being lazy
enough to publish this kind of stuff in the first place. PRs wouldn't do it if
each time they did, they got a follow up call asking them to justify their
numbers. I called the PR consultancy concerned and they couldn't provide supporting
information. I wonder if they'll offer some in the comments to this post?
