Straight from the horse’s mouth – FatBoy reviews why these 2014 communications fell at the first fence

Make sure 2015 doesn’t become your year of speaking or behaving dangerously by carefully considering your communications activity  – as it may come back to bite you. Here are some of my favourite examples from 2014.

Take a bite of the Apple

Apple ‘gifted’ all its iTunes customers with the U2 album Songs of Innocence to celebrate the launch of the iPhone 6 in September. The U2 page set up on Apple’s website triumphantly declared: “Never before have so many people owned one album, let alone on the day of its release.” What they failed to omit is that the customers hadn’t chosen to download the album. There’s a big difference between identifying something consumers would want and forcing it upon them.

Chomping at the bit

Politicians from all parties hit the headlines in 2014 for all kinds of gaffes. Perhaps my favourite was Ed Miliband starting a campaign tour ahead of local and European elections by sitting down to eat a bacon sandwich. The resulting photos, which aides belatedly tried to stop being taken, were proof that no-one looks good eating.

A stray bale of hale

Tesco had to suspend senior staff and start an investigation after admitting first-half profits were overestimated by £250m.