Timing is everything they say. So well done the auctioneers who are selling memorabilia to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Titanic.

Interest in the doomed liner shows no sign of waning but it’s still amazing that a first class menu from the last lunch ever held on board – on 14 April 1912 – is expected to fetch up to £100,000 when it goes under the hammer.

The sale is being held on 31 March by Henry Aldridge & Son to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the completion of the Royal Mail Steamer Titanic at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. The ship left Belfast on 2 April 1912 on that fateful journey which cost more than 1500 lives.

The menu was on the table of a prominent banker whose wife slipped it into her handbag, unaware of the tragedy to come, and who survived the liner’s sinking. It has stayed with the family ever since.

Media coverage is assured given the public’s fascination in the Titanic but the timing of the sale is no coincidence. Some clients believe a strong story is a strong story whenever it is issued, but the strategic view is to consider when it will have the greatest impact to maximize its news value.

There was so much that was right about the PR stunt staged today to raise awareness of Cure Leukaemia. On the face of it, it was a simple successful attempt to set a world record for the number of people in nurses’ uniforms in one place away from a hospital.

Enough volunteers, including a handful of Seals, showed up in Birmingham’s Victoria Square to ramp up the record from 116 to just over 200 . So job done, and hopefully it raised some valuable funds.

But look a little deeper and you can see the stunt was the launch of a well crafted media relations campaign. It was a highly visual, uncomplicated way of launching a longer term objective – that of highlighting the need to fund more nurses so they in turn could carry out research into potentially life-saving drugs.

The charity recognised the benefit of engaging with a suitable media partner, in this case BBC WM, rather than leaving it to chance by going it alone.  This guaranteed coverage, now and in the future; it wasn’t left to which media were able to turn up on the day.

WM also wins because it associates itself with a good cause. Indeed it branded the campaign the BBC WM 95.6 Red Alert Appeal for Cure Leukaemia, getting in not only its name but the station’s wavelength.

The station, including Jo Malin and fellow presenters, is throwing its full weight into the campaign, supporting it to the end of 2012.

And it wasn’t a coincidence, but good planning, the lead story on the BBC Birmingham & Black Country website was all about ‘More nurses needed for leukaemia drug trials’. A deeply serious message backing up today’s more fun activity.

The Twitterati also joined in to add momentum, including the city’s TownHallSymphonyHall which Tweeted the record attempt taking place just outside its front door.

So having put the PR stethoscope to this campaign the verdict is it’s in rude health.

But why do they it? Say sorry, I mean. Because never more so than today, reputation matters! In the case of Sony and the late Whitney Houston they may have felt the laws of supply and demand merited the increase. It’s not clear. Whatever the reason, it took a Twitter storm and up to 48 hours for them to apologise for the ‘mistake’ which they say they rectified as soon as it was spotted. They also apologised for any offence caused.

The power of a well-handled apology was demonstrated expertly by parcels giant FedEx’s response to the media furore that followed the posting of a video of an employee dropping a package over the fence of a California home.

Inside the package was a computer monitor. In two days the video was watched by more than three million people.

FedEx leapt into action. It quickly posted its own video, with a senior executive calling the actions ‘unacceptable’ and stating the company had apologised to the customer and replaced the monitor.

In addition, it said it had built the example into its employee training programme ‘as a constant reminder of the importance of earning, and keeping, customers trust with every single delivery’. FedEx’s swift and comprehensive action will have at the very least mitigated the negative publicity, and may even have enhanced its corporate reputation.

We love the first British TV advert allegedly created especially for dogs. With its high pitched sounds that cannot be heard by humans, it’s designed to send our pet pooches into a frenzy and use their pester power to demand we feed them Bakers dog food.

One vet interviewed on the radio said it was nonsense, just a marketing stunt. That may be, but it has certainly created the kind of media interest that’s an adman’s dream.

The canine-centred commercial is lots of fun as a band of mutts takes part in a heist which pays homage to that classic film The Italian Job. Whether dog owners will be persuaded to buy the meaty meals and sales go through the ‘woof’ is another matter.

An example of a dog, like the ones in the advert. Actually 'Charlie' belongs to Lorna who works at Seal.