Quite rightly, this did not go down well with many people. Unite Union-leader Len McCluskey and new peer Doreen Lawrence said that the messages on vans were hateful and involved racial profiling. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, called them ‘stupid’ and ‘offensive’. Even the UKIP leader Nigel Farage condemned the vans saying they were ‘not the British way’.

But I disagree with LibDem-leader Nick Clegg when he says that the vans were ‘driving aimlessly around North London’ and that they are ‘not a very clever way’ of tackling the issue.

We need to put this in context. The Conservative Party has had a pretty bad year when it comes to the issue of immigration. UKIP thrashed the Conservatives in the local council elections in March partly due to the Tories’ inability to address people’s concerns about immigration. Nigel Farage, the self-styled man of the people, has been on every TV news programme and every newspaper giving the British voters a clear, strong line on immigration. David Cameron and the Tory leadership has kept a dignified near-silence. Until now.

Enter the immigration vans. Every media outlet picked up on the story. Shots of the van, along with a direct call to action text number were, and still are, in all major newspapers. The coverage has spread to TV and Radio. Even the Nation’s favourite chat show –  ITV Daybreak – ran the story.

Is it possible that the Home Office has taken a small budget and generated, via a controversial ambush marketing campaign, huge amounts of publicity on purpose? I believe so.

The voting public now know that The Home Office is serious about waging war on immigration and the Conservative Party didn’t have to pay for a 10m door drop, nor an expensive TV ad campaign. They didn’t need a trendy celebrity spokesperson nor the latest background track from a number one seller.

The Home Office paid for six vans to travel around a tiny area of London for one week only.  My guess is the whole campaign cost less than £20,000 – reportedly just £10,000 – and took two weeks to devise and implement. Yet this campaign has generated millions of pounds worth of coverage.

Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryan Air, recently said in an interview with Marketing Week that he loved all his negative publicity as it put ‘bums on his seats’. Benetton shot to global fame with their risqué ads.

Could it be that our Home Office, which we believe to be filled with stuffed shirts and box tickers, decided to outwit us all? Call the media’s bluff?  I can imagine the conversations around The Home Office table: “It’s controversial sir, but I guarantee it’ll get the Nation talking!’ And it certainly did.

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McDonald’s faced similar trust issues ten years ago, globally and specifically in the UK. Their loyal consumers and potential customers decided their offering was substandard; their food regarded as unhealthy junk, an opinion reinforced by the film Fast Food Nation and the documentary Supersize Me.

McDonald’s started losing money at an alarming rate. But they didn’t give in – not that you would expect them to. Instead they faced their challenges and took rapid action. They improved quality, rallied the troops, got their crisis management in order, honed their marketing messaging and made a concerted effort to win back the nation’s hearts. Basically they spent money to stop themselves losing more money.

First they invested heavily in the finest ingredients, knowing that provenance was one of the key touch points to consumer satisfaction. They started using 100 per cent British beef, identifying the farmers from whom the meat came. They changed their UK advertising to ensure that it was all about the product. They revamped their photography – some shots taking months to prepare, and used some of the world’s best food photographers.

The changed how they spoke about themselves dramatically and ensured that globally all their advertising and direct mail had consistent quality messages. They started using images of fields, crops and families to highlight their food credentials. Everything they did directly countered the idea that their food was unhealthy junk. And it worked.

Public faith was restored and now McDonald’s sales are at an all-time high. So what can the Conservative party learn? They can get professional help to start tackling their trust issue head-on; start taking their branding seriously, get their messages right, develop strategic campaigns – and stop sticking their head in the sand and hoping it’s all going to go away.

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