Affairs, Accusations and Ads – who fired up and who was fired in 2025. InsideOut PR chief executive Nicole Reaney reveals this year’s PR sins and wins.
The Sins
Recipe Tin Eats favourite, Nagi Maehashi stirred up some controversy when she went bowl to bowl with Brooki Bakehouse, with accusations of plagiarism for two recipes. Brooke Ballamy denied her recipes were a dupe and a court of public opinion unfolded on social media with Nagi’s millions of fans declaring their support for the favourite creator. Eventually Nagi had to step in to halt the aggression directed at Brooke. Brooke picked up her batter scars and has just announced plans to open 100 stores globally.
Forget phonelines, Optus makes persistent headlines for all the wrong reasons. Most recently an outage in Melbourne impacting over 14,000 users disabled calls to emergency services. This follows the September outage which has been criticised for its delay in informing the government and ACMA and the deaths reportedly linked to the network fail. With a CEO apology and a promise of 300 workers to be added to national call centres, Aussies will surely question if they can really call on Optus.
Renowned for his outlandish wins on The Block, ‘Lambo Guy’ surfaced again in another drive for controversy. In an attempt to deflect from rebrand to the McLaren Man, he offered the first journalist $50,000 to refer to him by this preferred name. Alex Cullen took the bait – a move that rear ended his TV role on Today Show. That’s one road journalists will rethink in future.
Microsoft faced the wrath of the ACCC when it claimed 2.7 million Australians were misled by subscription pricing and a pushy sales tactic to more expansive plans. The plans featured AI capability in personal and family software. The tech giant accepted its communication fell short and promised refunds to customers. In a subscription-fuelled opportunistic economy, it’s expected more scrutiny will be placed on company ethics, transparency and ease of cancellation. If the ACCC succeeds the ruling, Microsoft could face multimillion-dollar fines
The Matildas were celebrated for bringing soccer and women’s sport front and centre. Captain Sam Kerr was a national favourite until she faced her own penalty, an incident in London saw an opposing side with a booze-fuelled racial attack directed at a cab driver. Kerr had her day in court and was found not guilty of racially aggravated harassment. The public remained divided, with some protective of her character, and others believing the events tainted her image and questioned her leadership.
The Wins
Woolworths released the Minecraft Cubeez collectibles this year. Environmentally friendly and leaning into children’s gaming interests with half of children aged 3-12 years playing the game, which also includes an educational version used in some schools. The move is a more socially conscious campaign than the prior Roblox campaign that awarded children with Robux. Roblox as the most used gaming app for the age group 4-18 hosts a number of concerns for parents from encouraging a gambling mentality to online safety.
Unveiling its new jeans campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, American Eagle drew global attention. “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” played on genes and attracted criticism towards heroing fair complexion, blue eyes, youth and outdated views of aesthetics as desirable traits. With the ads generating 40 billion impressions and customer counts up more than 700,000 – their daring stunt in a landscape of political correctness has possibly paid off.
Selling snow to an Eskimo – the insurance industry has historically been challenged to create impact in a sector that relies on consumers purchasing a product they may not actually need. Allianz unveiled its Care You Can Count On ad campaign which emotionally hooked viewers in showcasing its commitment to customer care. This ad ranked first in The Research Agency survey. The campaign launched its new brand promise in nature driven story line featuring a bird saving another in trouble and extending its care.
The Project announced its conclusion in June after 16 years and a number of favourite hosts and guests. From controversies to ratings, many have weighed in on why the show was pulled off the airways. But in true The Project style of ‘News Done differently’ – viewers began querying if the social media team received the memo of the show’s cancellation as it continued to run its social media account. The humour behind these news bites has won over more viewers than possibly the show itself.
It was an affair to remember as Coldplay hosted its Boston concert and new singles were released. Andy Byron, the CEO of $1 billion tech firm Astronomer, was publicly staged in his affair with the chief people officer Kristin Cabot as they were flashed on the Coldplay concert Kiss Cam. The duo – clumsily ducked and weaved covering their faces like two toddlers caught elbow deep in a lolly jar. Their identities were quickly uncovered with the video reportedly amassing more than 77 million views and Andy Byron became Australia’s most googled search name. Astronomer took the moment to cement its brand awareness on this new global platform with public statements and a cheeky cameo featuring Gwyneth Paltrow.
Nicole Reaney is the CEO of InsideOut PR.
