Day: January 8, 2016

A good PR campaign or stunt can work wonders for a brand.

Get the timing, tone and creativity just right and not only will you see tons of national, regional, online and broadcast coverage but thanks to social media, it can also end up going viral, giving you more exposure than money could ever buy.

There is a fine line between a good stunt and a failure. They can be expensive to plan and carry out, with no guarantee of anyone talking or writing about it afterwards.

But here at 72Point, we’ve seen several stunts and campaigns this year which have not only had great results in terms of coverage, but were memorable and got us all talking.

Here are just a few of our favourites from 2015…

Polar bear

Campaign: Polar bear on the tube
Brand: Sky Atlantic/Fortitude
Agency: Taylor Herring and Sky’s in-house PR team

Last January, commuters in London were greeted with a life-sized polar bear on the tube, after it was ‘set loose’ by Sky Atlantic to promote its new crime drama Fortitude.

The huge bear, which was built by a team of Hollywood special effects experts and operated by two puppeteers from the West End production of War Horse, was seen around various places in the city including the underground and crossing the Millennium Bridge.

Fortitude was set in the Arctic, and what better symbol is there of the frozen landscape than a terrifying but beautiful polar bear?

Thanks to the amazing pictures of the bear riding the tube, walking over bridges and roaming the city’s parks, the campaign got widespread coverage but it was also great for social media. The first thing confused Londoners would have done is to Tweet, Instagram or Facebook about their unusual encounter with a polar bear that day.

It received 47 million impressions on Twitter – 30 million of which were from the UK, while the show launched with just over 700,000 viewers – the biggest audience to date for a UK originated drama on Sky Atlantic.

Fifty Shades

Campaign: Fifty Shades of Grey ‘Leaked Memo’
Brand: B&Q
Agency: Good Relations

At the start of the year, it was all about the highly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey film, which was released in February.

B&Q ‘issued’ a memo to all staff telling them to get to know the storyline in case customers enquired about items inspired by the film, such as cable ties, rope and duct tape.

So many brands wanted to be associated with the famous movie, and all kinds of surveys, PR stories and stunts were planned to allow them to get on the Fifty Shades bandwagon.

But this was one of the best – the ‘leaked’ memo format was great and entirely believable, while still being very tongue-in-cheek, resulting in a huge amount of coverage including The Daily Telegraph, Sky News and BBC Radio Two.

They even saw a second wave of coverage after admitting the memo was, in fact, fake.

It was a great quick-win, which was quick and easy to execute, providing great talk value and standing out at a time when so many other brands were trying do stories about the same thing.

Lego

Campaign: Lego-proof slippers
Brand: Lego
Agency: Brand Station

As a parent to an almost five-year-old, Lego-mad little boy, as soon as I saw this, I thought it was a brilliant idea – stunt or not.

Anyone who has a Lego fan in their house will know the unbearable pain that comes from stepping on a discarded brick, trying hard not to swear repeatedly because your darling child (who is most likely the one responsible for leaving said brick in the middle of the floor) is nearby.

The branded slippers come with an extra thick sole, meaning parents can walk around their house freely, safe in the knowledge that more of the little bricks will no longer be a threat to their feet.

Unfortunately for millions of parents, Lego and the French agency behind the slippers, Brand Station, only made 1,500 of the slippers, but the coverage and social media activity around the stunt was a great result for the brand.

Lights

Campaign Christmas: Lights Untangler
Brand: Tesco

Christmas is a tricky time of year for PR – everyone wants to get in on the action but there is only so much Christmas PR the media can take.

Tesco came out on top with their idea to hire the first Christmas light untangler in one of their Wrexham stores after research found those in the town were found to be most frustrated by the festive job.

They took something which causes all kinds of stress in UK households at the start of December and tied it into their famous ‘Every Little Helps’ slogan with ease.

As part of the job ad, responsibilities included ‘manning and managing the Christmas lights untangling stand’, ‘checking lights and bulbs for signs of breakage’  and of course ‘successfully untangling customers’ Christmas lights neatly, quickly and efficiently and in an orderly fashion’.

The ideal candidate had to be ‘passionate about Christmas, ‘able to untangle three metres of lights in under three minutes’ and ‘be persistent and patient’.

After the first wave of coverage from the initial job ad, Tesco also saw further hits once they revealed more than 100 people had applied for the position.

NHS

Campaign: Missing Type
Brand: NHS Blood and Transport

The Missing Type campaign, in June, was designed to raise awareness about the shortage of blood donations, and saw As, Bs and Os, removed from the brands logo to highlight the different blood groups.

It started with a host of brands such as Waterstones, Odeon and even Downing Street mysteriously removing letters from their signage.

A few days later, NHS Blood and Transport revealed they were behind the missing letters with a news story revealing that 40 per cent fewer donors had come forward in that year, compared to ten years ago.

But following the reveal, as well as the brands who had already joined in, other brands took part with the public also joining in by changing their Twitter handles to replace any As, Bs and Os with a blank space. We even took part ourselves. The success of the campaign is clear in the figures – more than 30,000 people registered as blood donors during 10-day campaign and it had more than 700 pieces of coverage, which even resulted in the public website having to be taken down as a result of the unprecedented demand.

Snickers

Campaign: You aren’t you when you’re hungry
Brand: Snickers

Following news of the Jeremy Clarkson ‘fracas’ in March, Snickers jumped at the chance of some brilliant reactive PR.

As details emerged of the incident, where the Top Gear presenter was said to have assaulted one of the show’s producers because he was refused a hot meal, Snickers sent a box of the bars to the (former) BBC presenter with a note using the brand’s slogan ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.

The chocolate brand’s campaign and TV advert sees a Snickers bar given to someone who is acting diva-like due to hunger. After tucking into the chocolate treat, they return to their normal self.

The parallels with the Clarkson story were just too good to pass up and Snickers were quick to react – and tweet a picture of the box and note to their followers, which was retweeted thousands of times.

And finally, on the subject of Jeremy Clarkson, we also need to give an honourable mention to the Robox, a 3D printer created by the husband of our very own creative account director Emma Elsworthy, who created a Jeremy Clarkson version of Hungry Hippos, ‘Hungry Jeremy’.

They designed a 3D-printable version of Clarkson’s head, which can be used to replace the hippos’ heads in the classic game, which saw great coverage across print and online. It goes to show that a killer of an idea is still at the heart of a good PR campaign – you don’t need to be a big brand to generate a buzz.