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Sadly the fails seem to sneak there way into briefs with far more frequency than the wins. Cest la vie. Here they are:
Launching a new ad campaign
A classic, and yet clients are still surprised that journalists don’t really want to talk about ad campaigns (unless that happens to be their beat). If you want an ad in the media talk to the sales team that’s what they’re there for.
Overt marketing activity
A slightly more tricky one but also this little PR troll turns up pretty regularly too. “we’re running a competition to win R10000 / a trip to new york / some shampoo can yo write a press release”. The answer is a big fat no day 1 of journalism school is devoted to shooting down this type of guff.
Me too! product launch
Another one of my favorites: “we’ve come up with a great new mp3 player, with a little scroll wheel and we’re calling it the iBod can you write a press release?” The answer is yes and you will get coverage saying how lame you are and how poorly it compares to the product/service you’re ripping off that launched a decade ago. Particularly prevelant amongst local web companies sadly. A bit of innovation never hurt anyone…
Not news
A great example was Intel who I used to work for in the UK. There chips speed up by a bunch of gigahertz every few weeks. You’d think anyone would realise this isn’t news and didn’t require a six page press release… I reckon about 80% of the things we’re asked to PR contains no news whatsoever.
Too late
This is a sad one. A client has a great product but they went to market with it six months/years ago and now want to launch it. Or more common they’re launching in two months and want to get into the consumer glossies (which have a lead time of three months). Doh.
Crap product
See Me Too! product. You can’t polish a turd.
Bullshit
There are about a billion people on the internet armed with burning pitchforks waiting for companies to lie to them.
I’m sure there are some more out there but hate to start off an othewise sunny looking Friday negatively…
This is a summary of a presentation I did for ad students at Red & Yellow last week. Getting good consumer PR coverage is tough and requires a bit more imagination than throwing a launch party and inviting some C list celebs along.
Based on ten years of running consumer PR campaigns I’m pretty sure all the things that worked hit one or more of these media hot buttons:
A new product/service:
The most obvious one maybe but there are plenty of places to pitch new consumer products to. The downside is if you don’t regularly launch amazing products then you’re not going to be in the media very much…
Example: The ipod/anything Apple launches
Something to visit/participate in:
Consumer journalists are employed to find interesting content that’s relevent to their readers so if your brand can do something that is geniunely interesting and adds value then there is a good chance of getting it covered. Overt marketing activity doesn’t count.
Examples:
- ghd Revelations event (unusual fashion event run for ghd by Atmosphere)
- Best Job In The World (win a job being caretaker of a tropical island)
- The world’s first ephemeral museum (audio tours of urban art in Lisbon)
A new trend:
Same as something to participate in if your brand is involved or kicking off a new cultural trend without hijacking it blatantaly it could be a winner. The key is to empower consumers to experience something genuine and real not just slap branding over something you picked up on a blog somewhere.
Example:
- ghd style lounge (a twist on the pop-up store trend)
Human interest:
A key part of nearly all consumer media content is finding interesting people to talk to. It might be people living a lifestyle that matches the aspirations of their readers or people involved in interesting unusual occupations. The media also love people that have overcome obstacles to achieve success.
Example:
- Triumph Inspiration Awards (we focused our activity on profiling fashion students and their aspirations of entering the fashion industry)
Unique insight/knowledge:
Providing media with relevent information and knowledge they’re just not going to get elsewhere (because they don’t have the time or resources most likely).
Example:
- Capitec Youth Prosperity survey (a survey of SA youths attitudes to wealth)
Public good:
Doing something that genuinely helps society or helps people lead better safer lives is a route to coverage but one to be careful of. Just doing good to get publicity is pretty shallow and will quickly be sniffed out by the media – but doing something interesting that goes beyond just donating money to a good cause can lead to good PR as well as social good.
Example:
- Trapped by a pint glass (campaign to stop drink driving)
Celebrity:
Also a media hot button that is abused all too often. But like it or not the media are undoubtadly obsessed with celebrities and what they get up to (even with brands). Sadly just getting them to turn up to a party isn’t going to get you much more than a nice photo probably.
Example:
- Kate Moss for Topshop (celebrity line for Topshop in the UK)
A good fight:
The media loves a good fight between rival brands particularly if its a David and Goliath style battle between quick and nimble new brands and bloated established ones.
Example:
- Pigeon vs Telkom (a pigeon races Telkom to deliver data)
Arbness:
Doing something so crazy it’s irresistable to media to come along and cover it. The foundation of many publicity stunts. I’m a big fan of arbness myself as some of the best results seem to come from doing something outrageously off the wall.
- The Beautiful Game (a ballet based on football’s greatest moments)
You’ll notice most of these tick more than one hot button (even better). If your PR idea doesn’t hit one of these categories maybe think again (or leave a comment to update the list).
I’ve been involved in putting the ZA News media launch together (via client kulula.com) over the last couple of weeks. Yesterday morning at the Grand Daddy in Cape Town we held the very first screening in front of around forty journalists and the show seems to have gone down pretty well. The launch was a bit of a PR challenge as we had several things against us. Firstly nobody from the SABC was going to be brave enough to turn up so that takes off a lot of TV and radio targets. Also the show is being hosted on Mail & Guardian Online which is a competitor to both traditional print and online publishers. It’s credit to Zapiro and team that the concept was strong enough to still attract competitors to the launch (and also says something positive about SA media).
Choosing the online route (even if it wasn’t first choice) takes the show into really interesting territory and makes it pretty unique. The show will go out between Tuesday and Saturday every week so it requires the kind of production team traditionally only TV could put together. I think the show is going to hopefully be seen as the tipping point where this type of content is viable online (thanks to sponsors) and can bypass traditional media (with all the political restraints that go along with it).
Heathrow airport, as a creative piece of PR, hired writer/philospher Alain de Botton to be their writer in residence for a month. He’s just finished his book which looks at the all aspects of the airport and “what it says about modern living”. Nice idea.
As every plane took up its position, a choreographed dance began. A passenger walkway rolled forward and closed its rubber mouth in a hesitant kiss over the forward left-hand door. A member of the ground staff tapped at the window, a colleague inside released the airlock and the two airline personnel exchanged a brief and uninterested hello, the sort of casual greeting one might have expected between office workers returning to adjacent desks after lunch, rather than the encomium that would more fittingly have marked the end of an 11,000 kilometre journey from the other side of the globe. Then again, we are unlikely to hear anything more loquacious in the next century when, at the close of a nine-month journey, our shuttle docks in the eerie red midday light at a spaceport in Mars’s Cydonian hills and a fellow Homo Sapiens knocks at the gold-tinted window of our craft.
Available from amazon. Story via Springleap.
After a wander down a corridor (which was one backwards talking dwarf short of a Twin Peaks scene) the audience came across a window where they could watch this young lady talking on the phone:
Nearby was a phone booth where her conversation could be overheard – there were also telegrams (sent from the girl to a lover):
More photos in the rest of the article.
The ghd Revelations event took place last week after nearly a year of planning. The end result was very different to the original concept – the result of working with many people on the event (Hammer, theatre director Craig Leo, Mari Gronewald and our decor stylists). I mean that in a positive way though. The event was designed to immerse consumers in the ghd brand, show off their creativity and spread buzz about the brand. Guests wandered around 14 Hope Street – which basically feels like a dishevelled theatre following a circuit that led them around loosely connected scenes. There was a vague story behind the event – but we wanted people to interpret in their own way – it’s been fun to hear different people’s takes on it.
All the photos are taken by Simon Deiner & team. Should have some video later in the week…
Mari talks us through the looks at the technical rehearsal:
The pink frock ended up on our slightly toasted party girl (pic further down):
Lots more photos after the jump:
Atmosphere has just launched The Capitec Bank Youth Prosperity Survey. Aimed at connecting with young people and their parents, the survey takes a look at young adults attitudes and aspirations in relation to wealth.
To support the campaign we collaborated with Cow Africa to create a microsite to host the survey’s findings and includes a (beautifully designed) interactive quiz on spending habits and vox pops. In its first day the campaign has already scored a primetime interview on E TV, frontpage coverage in the Pretoria News and articles in Weekend Argus, Daily Dispatch, Weekend Witness, Beeld and Die Burger with much more expected over the next few days.
Scientific papers don’t usually cross over into the mainstream conciousness – normally just rot in the corner of university proffessors offices. Some bright scientists hit pr gold however by using zombies as an anology for controlling infectious diseases. Genius.
From the BBC “Science ponders zombie attack”
their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.
In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity’s only hope is to “hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often”.
They added: “It’s imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else… we are all in a great deal of trouble.”
According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that “zombies can come back to life”.
Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government’s chief advisers on controlling the spread of swine flu, said the study did have parallels with some infectious diseases.
“None of them actually cause large-scale death or disease, but certainly there are some fungal infections which are difficult to eradicate,” said Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London.
I came across The Beautiful Game while looking for creative pr case studies. Put together by UK agency 3W the campaign was designed to relaunch The Football Pools (an 85 year old way of betting on the results of British football). The client also wanted to draw attention to the money they give the arts through the campaign. The answer was to work with the Royal Ballet to create a performance based on the best ever soccer moments (as voted for by 10000 fans). This was premiered to media in London and publically performed in Liverpool drawing masses of coverage in the mainstream press and eventually a Cannes Gold Lion for PR. This worked because it was unexpected enough to inspire media to cover it but the execution was also perfectly aligned with the message the client wanted to put out there. Check the video out for more.
