Well done Krispy Kreme for a creative take on one of the oldest PR tricks in the book to launch its first store in Scotland.

A crowd draws a crowd and the fact that there were traffic jams around Edinburgh’s Hermiston Gait Retail Park as people descended en masse with the lure of free doughnuts turned a local event into national news.

According to media reports, hundreds of people queued in the snow for hours for free opening day treats – with one lucky person winning a year’s supply of doughnuts. The queues were that bad the busy M8 motorway nearby was snarled up as a result.

The real PR trick here is the fact that the traffic gridlock was probably widely reported instantaneously in the traffic bulletins on all the regional radio stations in the area. Not only would they have reported the location of all the hold-ups but also the reason why – which isn’t actually Krispy Kreme that was at fault. It was caused by all the people who went en masse for free doughnuts. So from a brand perspective, Krispy Kreme is blameless because they’re the victims of their own success.

They’re also laughing all the way to the bank because, according to reports, the store took more than £60,000 on its first day … and I bet it didn’t cost that much to stage the event either. The first person through the doors scooped a Krispy Kreme gold card which allows them to claim two dozen a month for a year – which when you think about it can’t add up to more than a few hundred quid.

You’ve got to hand it to Krispy Kreme, as this is textbook stuff done to perfection by its PR team. And there wasn’t a Homer Simpson in sight!