The Queen’s Olympics appearance finally brings Britain on board
By Niki Goddard on Monday, July 30, 2012
You almost certainly saw, or at least heard about the Queen’s part in the Olympics Opening Ceremony last Friday. The social media world was abuzz with excitement when the lady finally turned round and it turned out to actually be her. I didn’t believe it at first but it sank in and gave me a new found respect for the Queen and it seems a lot of people shared this sentiment with me. The general consensus was that she was a ‘G’ as a result; a title she can truly be proud of and one that only the British people can bestow freely.
The Queen’s appearance is probably, in my humble opinion, the most successful pieces of PR that will ever be. While it may be denied, Her Maj’s appearance was for one reason only; to bring Britain on board. As a gold medal nation of moaners, we have collectively targeted the Olympics with hate and disgust that surprised every other country (and isn’t there a lot of them!). The Opening Ceremony changed that though. The Queen’s appearance was followed by thousands of patriotic, proud to be British status updates, and teary eyed pro-monarchy tweets. What a shift in attitude. If I could come up with a campaign that achieved just 1% of that!
It wasn’t just the Queen’s appearance that changed out attitudes of course; the selfish, only Brits will understand ceremony thrilled us in our secret understand of what was going on. Mr Bean, otherwise known as Rowan Atkinson, was a stroke of genius. And the use of ‘We could be Heros’ by Bowie was the icing on the cake. But it was the Queen that turned the tide because I think we are all royalists at heart; like many things we complain about we’d stand til the death if it was attacked by another. That’s the British way. The Queen changed everything; when she turned I heard screams of approval emanating from pubs up and down the street and suddenly this was the greatest thing any of us had ever seen. I doth my hat to the person who came up with that one – truly PR at its best.
