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Chevrolet, Meerkats and Manchester – PR Campaigns We’ve Loved

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Here is a roundup of some of our favourite PR campaigns and stories from October ….

Chevrolet Sonic bungee jump – Chevrolet used a stunt last month to launch its new Sonic car to younger buyers.

People were invited to bungee a brand new car off a tower in LA by visiting a website and clicking on a button, with every click taking the car one step closer to the edge.

After nine hours and 2.5 million clicks the car took off. The launch was streamed online so people around the world could watch as it nose-dived towards a paddling pool before being bungeed back up into the air.

The campaign gave the term car launch a whole new meaning!

When I Were a Meerkat – The UK is mad on meerkats – fact. So much so that the Daily Mail devoted a whole double page spread to the launch of a new book, When I Were a Meerkat, by Andrew Davies.

A take-off of Davies’ original book, When I Were a Lad, the meerkat version super imposes pictures of meerkats on to old black and white photos in a fairly amusing manner.

Even though we originally thought it was, the book has nothing to do with Compare the Market, although there is a cursory ‘seemples’ in the intro of the article. Proof that the Compare the Market campaign is now so ingrained into day-to-day life that the media can’t reference meerkats without mentioning it.

United vs. City – two great Manchester derby stunts

Making the most of the fact that everyone in Manchester now hates Carlos Tevez, Betfair used last month’s Manchester derby to give fans of both sides the chance to bin their Tevez shirts in exchange for new ones.

Skips were placed outside Old Trafford to collect the shirts which were then shipped to Argentina to be given to local charities – everyone’s a winner!

Another cheeky stunt came from Tesco after this picture emerged – apparently the work of a ‘rogue employee’ and not the global supermarket. We have seen a few ‘pricing error’ stories from Tesco make the news in in recent weeks – smell a rat anyone?

One from the archives – Lakeside’s Living Christmas Fairy

The annual PR Week Awards took place last month and 2011’s campaign of the year went to …. Lakeside’s Living Christmas Fairy by Clarion Communications.

Simple yet highly effective, the campaign saw Chantelle Houghton placed on top of a 50ft Christmas tree as a living Christmas fairy.

A masterclass in the perfect picture story, the stunt combined newsworthy celeb, clever branding (the tree was positioned outside the store’s main entrance) and eye catching image and resulted in a whole raft of national coverage. Beats Matt Cardle turning on the Christmas lights any day!

Other notable mentions ….

There have been two notable PR hoaxes this year – the ‘Momzilla’ mother-in-law from hell email and last month’s giant slipper.

A mistake with an overlooked decimal point lead to a Chinese slipper manufacturer sending baffled Tom Boddingham a gigantic slipper. The company behind the product, Monster Slippers, blogged about the mix up and promised to send Tom a replacement in the correct size straight away. Then it transpired that the unwitting Tom, splashed across the world’s media, actually bore a startling resemblance to Monster Slippers’ website manager Joe Jennings. All of a sudden Monster Slippers were unavailable for comment.

Was it a good idea? Well, we’re still talking about it a month or so on making it a cert to go down in PR hoax history. And, many of us in the office did comment on how nice it would be to snuggle down and have a little nap in that giant slipper.

Mario Balotelli firework saga

Mario Balotelli made the news last month after allegedly setting his bathroom on fire when he and a group of friends decided to let off fireworks out of a window.

No sooner had the fire brigade left the premises had Mario been snapped up to front a Manchester firework safety campaign. Apparently the media had misreported the story and this was his way of putting things right.

Whether it was a quick thinking publicist or a clever approach from the firework safety organisation, it generated tones of national coverage, for what was a regional fire safety campaign, and gave Mario the chance to correct the negative press.

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Tags: Betfair, campaigns, Carlos Tevez, Chantelle Houghton, Chevrolet, Clarion Communications, Lakeside, Manchester, Mario Balotelli, Meerkats, Monster Slippers, PR
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Groupon: a PR fail?

Monday, October 31st, 2011

There’s been a lot of media coverage surrounding Groupon and other online discount sites recently and the majority of it has been bad. It’s amazing how a company has gone from being a global leader in local deals to what one might call a PR disaster.

I’ve sat in on brainstorms before where the idea of using Groupon for a client has been brought up, this was before all the bad publicity and at the time it was seen as a great tool to get your business in front of hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would be none the wiser to the services you offer.

The thing with Groupon is it wasn’t very well thought out. Yes it’s a discount site and recession or not, we consumers love a good bargain. However, retailers only like to give away a bargain of the Groupon kind during tough times, making the business immediately unsustainable.

Once the recession passes, companies won’t want to use sites such as Groupon. With the site taking 50% of sales revenue the profit margin is so low, if not non-existent, that there’s no point.

There’s also the perception that going on Groupon can damage your brand. If you scour the deals, 95% of the time you won’t have heard of the salons offering ultrasonic-liposuction or the beauticians offering teeth whitening or the restaurants offering £30 of food for £7.

These small businesses will most likely be thinking that an online discount site sending out a mailer to the masses is a brilliant marketing tool for attracting hundreds of new customers who will hopefully turn into repeat customers.

What they don’t see is that as soon as you associate yourself with any type of discount scheme, to most people that says ‘we’re in trouble’, which can be extremely damaging to a business or brand.

If you’re not in trouble then why do you need to offer a heavy discount to get people through the door? And if your business is in trouble, why? Is quality of what you offer not very good?

Also, how will your usual, loyal customers feel when they see that they’re paying full price for a service that a new customer is only paying a fraction of the full price for? Its risky business managing the perception of the value of what you offer whilst also keeping your loyal customers happy and satisfied.

Small businesses need to recognise that there are a number of free tools that are already out there which could help build your brand without having to resort to mass mailer sites such as Groupon to try and get people talking about their business.

A good social media strategy can help you educate and excite the general public. You can also optimise loyal customers and brand ambassadors using tools such as Twitter, spreading the word and building your reputation far and wide.

Hopefully small businesses will wise up as discount website – related horror stories spread. It seems that as Groupon’s head of PR quit after just two months, so is everyone else.

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Tags: bradford williams, groupon, PR
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Just Shut Up – Web 3.0 and Filtering

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

One thing we can all agree on is that the web is constantly changing and evolving. Following the ‘Web 2.0′ revolution of a few years ago, which saw the web becoming increasingly about engagement and interactivity, many are asking “What’s next?” Doubtless the next few years will see Facebook and Google slog it out to see who can become top dog, but what about us mere mortals? How will the web change and how will it affect us?

Recently we were provoked by the idea that the next revolution on the web would involve filtering.

Let us explain.

If you’re like most users of Twitter, you’ll have several hundred profiles you’re following. If some of those profiles are rather prolific, you’ll find that your Twitter stream is more like a torrent, with tweets appearing faster than you’re able to read them and a growing sense of frustration that you can’t read the ones that really interest you.

Perhaps the same is also true of your Facebook profile. It could be so crammed full of ‘friends’ that your nearest and dearest are pushed to one side, overtaken by a tidal wave of Farmville requests, meaningless photos of drunken nights out and gushing comments about someone you’ve never met and their new pet tarantula.

And so we start filtering.

After all, it’s a natural process that happens every day, all around us.

We filter when we go to the supermarket and we’re faced with 250 different types of wafer-thin ham. Most of us (those on the Atkin’s diet aside) only buy one. Likewise, when it comes to buying a new home, we naturally filter what’s on offer; by location, bedrooms, garden etc.

Filtering is our way of not being overwhelmed by choice and it’s arguably one key development in the web over the coming years. The truth is, every day we’re bombarded with more information than we know what to do with. And our social media profiles are no exception. We will be forced to filter in light of the amount of information we just can’t process, nor want to deal with.

If Web 2.0 was about ‘opening up’ then Web 3.0 is most definitely about ’shutting up’. Shutting up the brands, profiles and people that simply don’t interest us and filtering the way we receive information online. Getting ‘behind the veil’ to really speak to consumers is going to become increasingly challenging for brands. Clever, creative and interactive social media campaigns will be needed.

But before you all run screaming for the hills, the good news is that Web 3.0 will be more about building brand advocacy; inspiring consumers to do a brand’s bidding on their behalf. Apple is a fantastic example of this. Yes, their advertising is spot on, but we’re really won over when our friends talk up the new iPhone4S, tell us about the latest iPad app, or wax lyrical about AppleTV.

Brand advocacy may be harder to develop, but the results and rewards make it the holy grail for marketers. We’ll leave you with a rather irritating song that just about sums up our point:

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Tags: Facebook, filter, Google, Twitter, Web 2.0, Web 3.0
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Ryanair: the slag of the cheap PR stunt

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Photo: http://info-wars.org/

I think it was American showman Phineas Taylor Barnum who said “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”.

The ‘all publicity is good publicity’ mantra can be a dangerous furrow to plough. However, if you don’t mind the flack, it’s cheap brand awareness tool.

And great link bait, too.

Take Ryanair – the slag of slags when it comes to the cheap PR stunt – which last week ‘announced plans’ (the first phrase they teach you at PR Stunt College) to remove up to three loos on its planes to squeeze in more seats.

But Mr O’Leary, above right, the airline’s ringmaster and CEO, is the master at this sort of story. Have a look through most of the online coverage and, just like Ryanair passengers, low cost key messages are squeezed in all over (“The company said ticket prices would fall by about £2 from a typical £40 tickets”).

So, yes, less lavs; but it’s cheaper to fly with Ryanair.

The bigger question for me is does ‘making stuff up’ to garner column inches and backlinks count as ethical behaviour?

That’s a bigger debate. In the meantime, here’s my five favourite Ryanair PR stunts:

1. Ryanair ‘plans’ to have standing seats on its planes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8779388.stm
2. Ryanair ‘plans’ to ban luggage – passengers should “buy or hire” what they need when they arrive at their destination http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3878641.stm
3. Ryanair bans staff from charging their mobile phones to save costs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4467877.stm
4. Ryanair ‘considers’ charging passengers for using the toilet while flying http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7914542.stm
5. Ryanair ‘proposal’ for one pilot planes (part of wider Ryanair story) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11282834

One thing you may notice about these five examples – every one on BBC.co.uk, and every one with a gold-quality backlink from BBC.co.uk to www.ryanair.com… D’oh, that Mr O’ Leary is very good.

BTW, read Louise Woodward’s blog on some really clever travel social media campaigns.

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Tags: Michael O'Leary, Phineas Taylor Barnum, PR stunt, PR stunt college, Ryanair, slag
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Google +1 – The Importance of Logged-in Search

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Google+, the ‘logged-in search engine masquerading as a social media platform’, has received mixed reviews since it was launched just a few months ago. Far from judging the platform on its ability to keep us connected to our nearest and dearest, PR professionals need to dig beneath the surface to understand how this ‘platform’ impacts on search and online PR.

With the internet war between Facebook and Google becoming increasingly hard fought, Google’s social media platform enables the company to give consumers more specific search results, because, it assumes, we will stay logged in to our Google account even when we’re not connecting on Google+.

In its desire to challenge the supremacy of Facebook (which has a logged in and ‘captive’ audience to entice advertisers to spend on the platform) Google needed to create a similar platform to offer advertisers that ‘logged-in’ and highly specified audience. The simplest way to summarise it is that it’s all about the Benjamins.

So, what’s the knock-on effect for us PR people? And what’s with this +1 button, we hear you ask?

Well, it’s all pretty straightforward, really. Google’s algorithm (whilst never seen outside of a small group of mega-wealthy Silicon Valley residents) is sure to favour its +1 button when returning search results. Of course, the inference is that we need to be logged-in in order to give a web page, posting or site a +1, but these all add up over time to create a more social approach to search.

The truth is, for those specialising in online PR and SEO, we need to generate +1s with as much fervour as we look generate online coverage as they both have a positive effect on SERPs for the brands we represent. So, next time you post something, blog about an event, get some online coverage for a client, think about how you can translate this into improved search rankings.