Does Paul McCartney need Chicken Shop Date more than Chicken Shop Date needs Paul McCartney?

One is a modern-day icon, beloved by millions with a universally-praised back-catalogue of creative work – the other is Paul McCartney. Lucy Turner, creative, Ogilvy, investigates who needs who more…

Yes, everyone’s second favourite Beatle has a new album coming and if you haven’t seen him in the Guardian, the New York Times or as a TikTok ad before you swiped away to your next ‘puppy falling over’ video, you will have seen him on Chicken Shop Date.

Perennially-single CEO of the phenomenally popular series, Amelia Dimoldenburg, teased his appearance earlier this week with a recreation of the famed Abbey Road album cover on her Instagram page, and the comment section was immediately flooded with predictions flying in that Macca himself would be gracing the Shop to meet with Amelia.

In the words of a post on the Beatles subreddit – “Paul McCartney's been famous for so long that JFK was still president when he did his first radio interview, and now he's on Chicken Shop Date. Insane.”

Insane indeed. Because this is not just a date in a chicken shop with the world’s most famous vegetarian. 

This is a stark encapsulation of the increasingly complex comms ecosystem we find ourselves in and how no one, not even a Beatle, can afford not to play the omni-channel content game.

Whereas once someone, be it brand, artist or any other, wanted to reach out to their audience, they picked up the phone and called a journalist – prestige of the publication dependent on the quality of the story you had to tell. A publicity list, a press release, some nice pictures and there you had it, you’d done some PR. Now? Not so simple.

Formally safely gatekept behind the walls of magazine and newspaper offices, now the list for potential tastemakers is seemingly endless. 

Do you take to TikTok to attempt to capture attention in 1.3 seconds, scroll Substack for the newsletter du jour, show up on Reddit to speak directly to the people, or stay in the ‘traditional media’ safezone of TV and radio with the recognition that fewer and fewer people are tuning in?

Equally, whilst this widened spectrum could seem overwhelming, it also offers a myriad of new options opening up to us as an industry. More ground to cover means harder work, but also more opportunity to win big, and to have a bit of fun with our outreach. No more knocking down Vogue Magazine’s door til your email address is blacklisted, now there are hundreds of ways to spread the message.

I’m not offering answers – more of a Friday pat-on-the-back to PRs navigating these choices for clients, and even more so to those pushing the boat out and trying new approaches. If it’s good enough for Paul McCartney, it’s good enough for us.