Catherine Tyldesley: Ex-Coronation Street star hits back after 'bizarre' row over free cakes

Imagine if the bakery took them up on the offer and baked the cakes FOC only to find out afterwards the 'well known' celebrity an ex soap actress that you had to Google and someone who hasn't done anything of note in years. I would be pretty miffed.

Ok so now she's claiming to be the victim in all this saying the agency has 'mis-represented her', I'm not sure about that if she got those cakes for free I doubt very much she would be asking lots of questions as to how this came about.
 
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Freddie1980 said:
Imagine if the bakery took them up on the offer and baked the cakes FOC only to find out afterwards the 'well known' celebrity an ex soap actress that you had to Google and someone who hasn't done anything of note in years. I would be pretty miffed.

Ok so now she's claiming to be the victim in all this saying the agency has 'mis-represented her', I'm not sure about that if she got those cakes for free I doubt very much she would be asking lots of questions as to how this came about.
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There was no contract and based on what I read they do this a lot and promise more work and then nothing ever comes.

The bakery was absolutely right to reject it, are celebs now so hard up they can't afford to eat?
 
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Dialup said:
There was no contract and based on what I read they do this a lot and promise more work and then nothing ever comes.

The bakery was absolutely right to reject it, are celebs now so hard up they can't afford to eat?
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Pretty shameful indeed, she's been outed and been embarrassed and will likely be out of well paid work a good while.
 
Even if the bakery maybe, possibly exaggerated the situation I still think they're in the right about being exploited for valueless exposure when costs are so high and less customers are even thinking about getting a luxury like a cake.
 
Feek said:
Dialup said:
Influencer wanted free cakes instead of paying for them herself and the bakery said no. Influencer throws babies out of the pram. Bakery gets free exposure and influencer looks like a prat.
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This is the total opposite of what happened.
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Bakery wanted free cakes from an influencer. Influencer put babies back in the pram. Influencer gets free exposure and the bakery looks like a prat. About right?

dowie said:
No, according to your story, an agency wanted that not the "influencer" (who is actually apparently some soap actress rather than an "influencer").
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Wasn't the agency working on her behalf ie. planning the party and offering to plug the bakery on said "soap stars" socials. One would assume that they had permission to offer that from the woman before trying to use that for free cake no?

dowie said:
It's pretty standard for people with a following to be paid for promotional stuff though usually, it's the other way around, advertisers/agencies etc.. approaching them rather than them trying to solicit stuff they want. There was another story with an "influencer" type rather than a celeb wanting a free stay in a hotel in Ireland.
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Its massively common for influencers to try and get free stuff in return for mentions. A lot of small businesses get it quite a bit and the bakery have said as much.

dowie said:
Well they don't want something for nothing, they want something in return for some publicity, something that does have value.
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They wanted quite a lot, which would cost the bakery a lot of time and money for something which has a questionable and unknown value to the bakery. It could literally have been "cakes by @bakeryname in a single post with the cakes in the background of a picture.

dowie said:
As for why the bakery is publicising its response - publicity having value again, this story has now gone viral and they've got a load of positive attention. They've also thrown in the stock phrases about how exposure doesn't pay their bills etc... that might be the case with say actors and other artistic people working for free but if you're running a small business then advertising does tend to help bring in customers and pay your bills.
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This just got picked up by the media. They didn't exactly execute a masterstroke of viral marketing. They, like many small businesses are probably just sick of people trying to get free stuff because "don't you know who I am". I would think a lot of small businesses post about this all the time. It just isn't picked up by the likes of twitter/DM normally.

dowie said:
The initial e-mail seemed off as they made very vague comments and the promise of some coverage in OK magazine has since been undermined by the celeb saying they're not involved. I think any small business taking up such an offer ought to check who exactly it is for, what sort of numbers they get for their social media posts and give some strict requirements like there must be at least one post featuring the cake itself (and not in among a selection of photos on the same post) with the bakery named and tagged on the first line of the comments etc.. + [some requirements re: duration it must remain, story posts for the other items and cake photo, not posted at the same time as a bunch of other updates from the same account etc..etc..) and if not fulfilled then an invoice of £X is due etc..
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Or tell them you are not interested and to bugger off. Post about it on your socials if you fancy. Always a risk someone will call you out when you are being a chancer and suggesting someones mere mention of little old you is worth days of your time and effort.

dowie said:
It just seemed quite vague and like complete chancers but it could be worthwhile in theory (if the bakery does mail-order stuff/isn't just local), supposedly someone with her following should be able to get $1000 - $3000 per post and if that's enough to cover the two cakes + cupcakes then... maybe worth a shot.
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They wanted 1 large and fancy cake that would be akin to a wedding cake. A smaller cake for the husband (I assume that could be a cupcake based on how little importance that seems to have ;)) and then 100 cupcakes. That could easily cost them over £1000 in ingredients and labour and thats ignoring the money they could make by using that time to make something someone was paying for.

I would be amazed if that is the estimate for someone with her followers that it would make even a small amount of sense to do it. That estimate will be based on advertising something that has widespread appeal to said influencers followers and is easily sold to them. Not cakes that won't travel. I might be wrong here but I would also think there is a very small crossover between people who follow soap stars and people who buy fancy expensive cakes.
 
Lopéz said:
I'm not feeling the outrage on this one.

  • "Influencer" (Tyldesly) is contracted to do a gig for promo agency (NVRLND)
  • NVRLND ask cake company (TLBB) to supply goods in return for promotion in lieu of cash payment
  • TLBB refuse - to be honest there wasn't any need for a response of that nature, a simple "Sorry, but we do not engage in promotional work of this nature" would have been more than enough
Tyldesly has done nothing wrong and had literally no involvement in this, NVRLND has also not done anything wrong, TLBB has overreacted to a reasonable request from a prospect customer.

Here endeth my summary.
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That's what I read this morning and was wondering what everyone else in this thread had read!

If anything it clearly shows that Tyldesly should be suing her PR company for bad rep as according to most people in the thread she's the one who was after the free cakes.
 
Bakery shouldn’t be getting any stick. They posted to a local Facebook group to vent.
Celebrity turns it into national news because they want to have the last say.
Celebrity trying to say bakery was after publicity looks incredibly petty.
 
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Semple said:
That's what I read this morning and was wondering what everyone else in this thread had read!

If anything it clearly shows that Tyldesly should be suing her PR company for bad rep as according to most people in the thread she's the one who was after the free cakes.
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"Influencer" is the ones whos party it is and would 100% have known if a promo agency was offering anything from her to 3rd parties.
 
fez said:
"Influencer" is the ones whos party it is and would 100% have known if a promo agency was offering anything from her to 3rd parties.
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I disagree, had the bakery agreed the PR agency would have told her she's gotta say blah blah about the bakery and pose with some photos. She's not going to know about what's arranged beforehand - that's why you have a PR agency
 
Semple said:
I disagree, had the bakery agreed the PR agency would have told her she's gotta say blah blah about the bakery and pose with some photos. She's not going to know about what's arranged beforehand - that's why you have a PR agency
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They're an entertainment company. They wouldn't have the remit to offer services on behalf of the client without consulting them. PR companies don't do things they haven't been authorised to do either. They might not explicitly talk about the small details but they will have said "are you happy for us to offer promotion on your socials in return for free stuff" at the very least.
 
fez said:
This just got picked up by the media. They didn't exactly execute a masterstroke of viral marketing. They, like many small businesses are probably just sick of people trying to get free stuff because "don't you know who I am". I would think a lot of small businesses post about this all the time. It just isn't picked up by the likes of twitter/DM normally.
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No one said it was a masterstroke, but this sort of story has been done before and generates clicks... it's cheaper than having to put effort into cakes etc..

See, for example, this story which resulted in a bit of back and forth between an influencer and a hotel owner: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/...ullying-over-free-accommodation-a3746401.html

fez said:
They wanted 1 large and fancy cake that would be akin to a wedding cake. A smaller cake for the husband (I assume that could be a cupcake based on how little importance that seems to have ;)) and then 100 cupcakes. That could easily cost them over £1000 in ingredients and labour and thats ignoring the money they could make by using that time to make something someone was paying for.
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No, that isn't relevant if you're already looking at the price of the cake(s), the price of the cakes is reflecting their time + materials as is any other order, the relevant question here is simply whether the advertising/exposure they'd be trading for cakes is worth that much to them*.

In order to really answer that they'd probably need some more specific guarantees about what sort of promotional stuff would be posted in return as what they'd had so far seemed to be vague.

Of course, taking a free roll on a funny story about an entitled celeb cost very little time and no resources and seems to have gotten plenty of exposure for free.

*Instagram posts for people with that following can be worth that much but not necessarily for the bakery
 
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