Hearts & Minds: Tea, cake and culture clash in the Cotswolds

It is different if the visitor is Donald Trump. The president likes to visit places he and his family own. It’s part of the promotional campaign. Unlike Turnberry, the Cotswolds is not part of JD Vance’s asset portfolio. Instead, those in charge of making something out of the vice-president’s holiday are left scratching their heads. His stay has shown the world the soft, yellow-stoned villages and winding lanes. Truly, it seems to hark to a bygone, pastoral age, of gentle, rural idyll. His followers cannot fail to be impressed. The Cotswolds should brace for an influx of MAGA.

The area is heaving in summer.  Coaches and cars park up on the verges, disgorging tourists who tend to be elderly types seeking a pot of tea and piece of cake. Those who have moved in recently, snapping up the farmhouses, are also of a certain milieu: affluent, drawn to a country bolthole within touching distance of London. Not, you suspect, bedrock JD. So, what to do, to market and profit, or to ignore, in the hope the buzz quietly dies.

It's a classic dilemma that besets B2Cs from time to time, when the brand suddenly attracts a new, wider audience, that risks alienating the core. Try and imagine where it is going, media-wise. The press focus on negativity, it’s what they do, it’s what sells and it’s what social media, memes and all, totally adores. Here, is a ready-made gift. You have a product that cannot cope, is not equipped to deal with the stampede. That’s some juicy headlines and pictures, right there. Add-in the culture clash, the delicious side-by-side contrasts and the quotes. It is media manna.

In comms, the year, years, ahead consist of batting away jokes and criticism. You can attempt to see the funny side but the mutual laughing only goes so far. Rather it becomes a relentless, uphill struggle to prevent the company reputation from plunging downhill. Ruination could easily be the endgame.

Sure, there will undoubtedly be short-term gains to be had. Those sales will go gangbusters; revenues will pour in; the stock will climb ever upwards. For a while. When it comes, the fall may prove precipitous. Long-term it might be hard to ever recover. Cash in the hand now, versus a tougher tomorrow. The Cotswolds should thank the v-p, it would be impolite not to. Then pick up where the centuries left off.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.