PICTURED: Jonathan Hilder on air and batting for vending – at 6.22 AM!
With an appearance on BBC Breakfast TV, followed by a contribution to Radio Four’s flagship consumer affairs show, You and Yours’, the AVA’s CEO Jonathan Hilder has had his work cut out this week.
Speaking up eloquently for vending in a discussion on obesity – which costs the NHS around £9bn per annum – Jonathan’s aim was to end the demonisation of vending machines. It’s a story we’ve heard before, but it becomes more compelling with every re-telling. JH’s ‘opponent’ in the item was obesity specialist Dr. Sally Norton and it was gratifying that the two were, essentially, singing from the same hymn sheet.
Later in the day, on You and Yours, Jonathan was faced by a martinet of a head master whose stance was determinedly anti-vending. It was a triumph for him and for AVA members that the facts, figures and attitudes conveyed turned the skeptic into a convert.
The icing on the cake was a piece in today’s Independent On Line, which you can read here, that highlights the costs incumbent upon the industry with every introduction of a new coin…
Our messages are getting ‘out there’. With the help of a razor-sharp PR company and by regularly presenting himself to the media at daft o’clock to score points for everybody involved in UK vending, Jonathan Hilder and his team at the AVA are doing a pretty good job for us.
Isn’t it baffling, then, that there are still some businesses out there that fail to see the benefits of AVA membership?
Find out how to join here.
