PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad & The Viral

This month’s round-up of weird and wonderful PR campaigns include a hotly debated cosmetic surgery campaign, a travel company causing an actual brawl in Derby, hipster weddings, a fudge Mayan temple and the current topic of Instagram and promoting body positivity.

COSMETIC SURGERY FIRM PUTS BLOGGERS FRONT AND CENTRE

Cosmetic Surgery brand Transform channelled the power of bloggers to help tell personal stories to promote a number of procedures.

The bloggers used included; Sarah Ashcroft (That Pommie Girl) who discussed her breast enlargement, Monikh Dale (Tres Monikh) discussing her lip enhancement, Lydia Millen discussing her laser hair removal and Scarlet Dixon (Scarlett London) discussing her rhinoplasty.

The Instagram and YouTube accounts of the bloggers were used to drive the campaign, looking to position the brand as the best for cosmetic alterations among young women, but also explaining their back stories and their experience with Transform.

The campaign launched in Spring 2016 and ran for a year, with a total spend of £770,000. The material contained no call to action, with Transform hoping to attract fans of each blogger in a more organic way.

The campaign was a hit with the blogger’s followers, gaining support through likes, comments and shares. However national press such as The Guardian and the Mail Online debated whether this was a positive campaign for Transform. A particular video of Sarah Ashcroft was used as a TV advert explaining the process of her boob job and after a week of being aired the video was banned due to it being seen as 'exploiting' young women's insecurities. Online press agreed that the video painted a negative brand image, claiming that it encouraged younger women to get a breast enlargement to gain confidence.

The Blogger stories represented a marketing shift for the company, moving from prioritising TV and print and instead leaning towards digital and social media platforms. This proved to be a popular campaign with the bloggers and their followers; however the general public did find criticism.

JET2HOLIDAYS CAUSES MASSIVE BRAWL

Next, we are looking back at a travel PR stunt gone wrong. Travel company Jet2holidays inadvertently caused a mass brawl as they offered the general public the opportunity to win free flights to a selection of European destinations.

The invitation was put out across their social media channels and people turned up in their droves to the chosen areas in Derby, Nottingham and Leicestershire. Upon arriving in Derby, Jet2holidays had collected a group of young, staff members dressed in red morph suits and the general public were instructed to track them down across the city and tap them for the chance to win free flights. Unfortunately, members of the public rugby-tackled, barged and fought their way to the free flights, with a number of people getting hurt in the process.

The disastrous stunt was covered by BBC News, Mail Online, The Telegraph, The Mirror and The Huffington Post. Additionally, members of the general public took to twitter to express their unhappiness with the company.

I SHORE DO

It’s official. The hipster craze has reached its crescendo. They’ve commandeered the man buns, lumberjack shirts, funny coffee choices, vegan food, tattoos, pretend glasses, handlebar moustaches and beard accessories and now they have their own hipster weddings.

Hipster (hɪpstə): A person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream.

Andaz, a hotel in London’s hipster origin Shoreditch, launched the ‘Get Shore-hitched’ wedding package, carefully crafted with all the hipster needs in mind. The package features handcrafted graffiti invitations created by local street artists and complimentary tattoos. Newlyweds can feast on canapés and a wedding breakfast menu created by Shoreditch street food vendors after the ceremony, which will take place in the hotel’s Masonic Temple, a secret room hidden in the depths of the hotel. The hipster wedding fun doesn’t stop there, post-wedding, a local Shoreditch designer will recycle wedding dresses into an outfit that can be used over and again.

We might be seeing the light at the end of the hipster trend, but this is a good way for the East London hotel to highlight and strengthen its relationships with local suppliers and come out on top of this niche market. Coverage-wise, this was picked up by a good number of titles including; The Independent, Good Housekeeping, the Metro and the Evening Standard achieving some hip PR for the hotel too.

We wonder how long it’ll be until we see the hipster divorce?

SUGAR HIT!

We’re looking way back to 2013 at a very successful PR campaign by British heritage brand Tate & Lyle. To celebrate a range of golden and brown cane sugars, the leading sugar brand lured unsuspecting journalists to the world’s first ‘edible hotel’. Very Hansel and Gretel of them – albeit without the witch.

According to the Mail Online, “Lucky residents munched their way through vanilla sponge cushions, windows and walls clad with 2,000 macaroons, a rug made from 1,081 meringues and 20 kilos of marshmallows.”

The Soho-based guest house took a team of 14 cake makers more than 2,000 hours to bake and 900 hours to decorate, and was created using more than 600 kilos of sugar. In addition, there were themed rooms including a Golden Syrup room and a Mayan-inspired room which included a fudge Mayan Temple.

The main objective was to inspire consumers to ‘get creative in the kitchen’. We think they did a rather tasty job as the stunt was covered numerous times by leading media outlets – surely that has to be the icing on the cake, no?

MYPROTEIN JUMPS ON THE BODY POSITIVITY BANDWAGON

Sports nutrition supplement MyProtein wants to show the world that gaining weight through a high protein diet does not only make you feel better, but makes you look better too. To prove this, they challenged 12 women to gain weight healthily through a MyProtein diet and exercise regime. The women then posted their before and after photos along with their before and after weights on Instagram with the hashtags #gainingweightiscool and #screwthescale. Some of them gained as much as three stone and we believe most people would agree that they look better in their fuller, more toned after-photos.

With this, MyProtein has done two great things. First of all, they have created an incredibly visual fitness campaign that stands out in that it doesn’t tell you that you need to lose weight to look fit and healthy, but rather that gaining weight may be a better option. Secondly, it jumps on a very current trend which is a brilliant way to get noticed; the hashtags used in the campaign have been popular among fitness practitioners and body positivity campaigners for some time and have been used on Instagram thousands of times. By using these hashtags, MyProtein did a great job in appealing to a community that aligns with their core messages of promoting health and fitness. Although whether telling women gaining weight will make them hotter really screams ‘body positivity’ is still a topic that’s up for debate.

The campaign gained worldwide coverage, from Daily Mail and Daily Star in the UK, to People and Insider in the US, as well as outlets in Poland and Germany – showing that people love a positive health message all across the world.

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad & The Viral

This month's PR Campaigns chosen by the Sunny Bird PR team include colourful street art in cities across the country, a seagull in Weymouth teaching us some environmental lessons, a project in the US rewarding people for recycling and a war against the Best Before date.

Dulux paints the town…colourful

Dulux’s relationship with its consumer was typically conducted through a giant, shaggy dog until the brand’s colour campaigns came along. There have been a series of these ranging from partnerships with Olympians to injecting colour back into the prohibition era. Our favourite colour campaign from Dulux is this one; an outdoor PR and experiential campaign that saw illustrators paint city murals across the UK to demonstrate how colour can transform surroundings.

The campaign, called 'Colour Britain' comprised of eight giant murals and artworks hand painted onto canvases in town squares around the country.

The sites were designed by illustrators to celebrate stories of history, heritage, colour and culture from cities across Britain.  Dulux wanted the canvas murals to create a positive atmosphere in high streets and town squares with their bright hues. The public chose local stories to inspire the artworks, with Liverpool’s featuring The Beatles, Birmingham’s celebrating the modern British curry and London’s highlighting the iconic black cab.

The eights murals were painted at a location chosen by the public using #colourbritain and the illustrators included Anna Kilpelainen, Adrian Johnson and Emily Forgot. Interviews with the artists and time-lapse videography of the installations were also designed which formed the basis of social media content for the brand.

"We believe that life is a story that deserves a colourful backdrop and as such this initiative champions use of vibrant colour in unusual locations to truly brighten people's daily lives," said Johnny Corbett, Dulux Marketing Manager.

Getting the public involved in this experiential campaign from the start meant that when the murals were going up the locals were invested and interested. This natural pride in #lovewhereyoulive would have encouraged a steady flow of social media posts allowing the Dulux campaign to be shared outside of those eight cities.

Fun, regional campaign gains national interest 

Isn’t it a pain when a seagull sneakily steals a chip out of your hands?! A recent regional PR campaign has gained traction within the national media by using some fun, cheeky seagulls to spread an important environmental message.

Litter Free Coast & Sea is a community campaign that aims to reduce marine and beach litter and improve bathing water quality in Devon and Dorset. The latest campaign, cleverly named ‘don’t feed the locals’, aims to highlight the problem that litter can cause when it comes to greedy gulls. Rubbish left on beaches encourages seagulls to frequent the area and not only can seagulls be a pain when they decide to harass and steal food; they also contaminate our beaches and sea with their poo.

Litter Free Coast & Sea hosted two events along Weymouth seafront during half term, to get the message out to visitors and locals about not feeding the seagulls. Two people in giant seagull costumes visited the seafront and posed for some well-timed, humorous photographs. Their cheeky nature created lots of laughs and helped spread the message and the story was picked up by both The Metro and The London Evening Standard.

This is a great example of a regional PR campaign that has gained national exposure due to its simple and fun photography.

Rinse, recycle, repeat your bathroom empties

Rinse, Recycle, Repeat is a national recycling program in the U.S for beauty and personal care products that motivates the next generation to make an impact on the planet by recycling their empty beauty products.

Garnier, TerraCycle and DoSomething.org launched a ‘Rinse, Recycle, Repeat’ national campaign and college competition with YouTube personality Remi Cruz, with the aim to educate and raise awareness about the next generation to responsibly recycle their beauty empties. The aim is to divert 10 million beauty and personal care empties from landfills by the end of 2017.

National Campaign

People who wanted to participate in the national campaign had to sign up online at DoSomething.org/rinse, decorate a bathroom recycling bin and share a picture with DoSomething.org on the "Prove It" page online or by texting RINSE to 38383 to be entered to be in with the chance of winning a $5,000 scholarship.

Once the bin was filled with 4.5kg of empty bottles, participants could print a free shipping label to send their empties to TerraCycle to be responsibly recycled.

College Competition

As well as the national campaign, on April 1st, a college competition kicked off on 50 college campuses in America to collect the most empty bottles. The college team that collected the most were rewarded with a garden for their community, furnished by Garnier and TerraCycle. The winning college will also receive a $2,000 scholarship to thank them for their commitment to keeping empty beauty bottles out of landfills.

As this campaign is on-going, results are yet to be finalised. To watch the video on how to transform your bathroom, click here.

It’s bananas! How confusing food labels make us throw away perfectly fine food

Confusing food labels may be in for a makeover as The Food Standards Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the not-for-profit Waste & Resources Action Programme are revising the current standards for “best before” type food labelling in an effort to reduce waste across the UK.

To bring attention to the matter, they have compiled a number of tips on how households can reduce their food waste and food bills by smartening up to labels, proper food storage and buying reduced items. The message is strengthened by statistics on how much food we waste in the UK, we were shocked to discover that every day we throw away six million potatoes, three million apples and one million bananas! The campaign also includes an interview with a woman from East Sussex, who explains how she cut her family’s food bill by £500 per year by shopping at stores offering products close to or past their best before-date.

The message behind the campaign is that we need to rethink food labels and reduce waste for the sake of sustainability, but also that doing so is a win-win for everyone; we can use less resources and save some money along the way! It’s a great message as it is one that everyone can get on board with as most of us have found ourselves inspecting our potatoes to see if they are still good, or Googling what on earth “best before” actually means.

This feature was initially spotted in The Mail on Sunday (1,236,839) and has since been picked up online by the Telegraph (146,748,200), The Sun (68,678,330) and the Metro (47,081,468), making it a huge success both on and off line Let’s hope the message gets across and we waste less food as a nation – we’re all being much more careful now after reading it!

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad & The Viral

This month's PR campaigns include an experiential from our favourite tonic, an equality message from an ice-cream giant and the best salescreature in the Czech Republic...

Escape Fever

As an avid team of gin fans (Conker all the way obviously), we love Fever-Tree but after hearing about this experiential stunt from the premium tonic brand we think we might love them a little bit more now.

To launch its new range of dark spirit mixers, Fever-Tree hooked into the latest hipster craze of escape rooms. This refreshing PR stunt was first showcased at the Imbibe trade show earlier in the year, immersing visitors in the brand’s history as they played against the clock to ‘escape’. Having been to many trade shows, we’re very sure that Fever-Tree would have provided some much needed entertainment and respite as well as reaching out to potential buyers and stockists in a fun and engaging way.

The game is set to be launched to the public in a London location during London Cocktail Week in October. A series of smell and taste tests will be completed before a final puzzle that lets participants ‘escape’ the room. The game can be completed in pairs and the pair with the fastest time wins a mystery grand prize.

We love this experiential PR stunt; it’s on brand, of the moment, engaging, fun and effective. Seems like a good excuse to check out London Cocktail Week if you ask me…

#Say I Dough

Famous for speaking out on hot issues from the arctic to cow welfare to democracy, Ben & Jerry's is now campaigning for marriage equality in Australia.

The American ice-cream giant has banned two scoops of the same flavour in its 26 Australian stores as part of a push for marriage equality Down Under. "It is time to stand up for fair and equal rights for all by letting our leaders know that we demand Marriage Equality!"

"Imagine heading down to your local Scoop Shop to order your favourite two scoops of Cookie Dough in a waffle cone," the company wrote in a statement. 

"But you find out you are not allowed – Ben & Jerry’s has banned two scoops of the same flavour.

According to polls, around two thirds of Australians support same-sex marriage as do the majority of MPs and Aussie stars Kylie Minogue and Sia have shown support at music awards. So Ben & Jerry’s know they have the weight of the public behind them ensuring a popular campaign – ice move.

Ben & Jerry's has joined more than 1,200 companies and organisations calling for marriage equality in Australia. We love this campaign for its simplicity, strong messaging and good ethics.

Is Carl the Parrot the Best at Sales in the Czech Republic?

Most pet owners will tell you that their pet is the best in the world. Everyone thinks their pet is the smartest, cutest, or most loyal but not many can boast that their pet is the best at sales.

In a recent campaign for Ceska Pojistovna, the largest insurance company in the Czech Republic, Carl – an African Grey parrot – was trained to sell pet insurance with help from a specialist animal trainer. Carl’s trainer has a great track record having already trained animals for blockbusters like Bourne Supremacy, The Illusionist and Wanted.

Over three months, Carl was taught to say “pet insurance” and after daily practice, the clever bird was ready to show off his new talents. The insurance company took him to stores around the country, Carl’s office was a cage with a tablet so customers hearing Carl’s cry of “pet insurance” could buy their pet insurance direct from Carl’s ‘office’.

After a week Carl had outsold all of his human colleagues – what a result for the insurance company. More importantly, he insisted on being paid peanuts!

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

It’s that time of the month again where the team talk about their favourite PR campaigns. Each week the Sunny Bird PR team research PR campaigns that have made their way into the media and choose one to share that demonstrates effectiveness, reach, simplicity, message and in some cases the opposite – how not to execute a PR campaign. Every month the team chooses their personal favourites we deliver them here – The Good, The Bad and The Viral from the PR Campaign world.

This month we present a beer brand bringing people together despite their differences, a charity asking for people to walk, run or cycle an outline of a ‘ballsy’ shape to raise money and awareness, and a well-known craft beer company sets up a crowd funding page for a spectacular opening in Columbus Ohio – or so it says...

Heineken’s #OpenYourWorld Campaign Encourages Consumers to Have a Debate Over a Beer

With global unrest and elections tearing people in different directions, Heineken has taken a new PR approach that aims to highlight people’s similarities and the common ground that can exist between two strangers with differing opinions.

A video has been created that shows two strangers meeting in a warehouse. Neither party knows the reason behind the experiment, however short clips of each person are shown to the viewer. It becomes clear that the two strangers have been partnered together as they have strong conflicting opinions on a particular subject (climate change, feminism, transgender equality etc.). At the end of the experiment the strangers are shown the video clips which highlight their conflicting beliefs and they are then asked to make a decision on whether they wish to leave the building or discuss over a beer. The #OpenYourWorld video sees the beer giant try to convince people that although their fundamental beliefs might mean, on the face of it, they can’t enjoy a drink and a chat together, it doesn’t have to be the case.

A nice feel-good message that is very relevant and relatable to a UK audience. The video has been viewed over 13 million times and achieved coverage in multiple titles including The Guardian and The Huffington Post.

New Zealand Charity Gets Ballsy

With so many charities clamouring to be heard in a crowded market to secure much needed funds and awareness, the team liked this ballsy approach by Testicular Cancer New Zealand. The charity teamed up with a New Zealand advertising agency to kick off a social campaign called #GoBallsOut for Testicular Cancer Awareness Month.

The campaign asked men to walk, run, cycle, skip, kayak the outline of a “Cock & Balls” by using fitness Apps such as Strava, MapMyWalk, Runtastic etc. So not only did this campaign get people thinking about one of the most common forms of cancer in men, but it also got people moving, double win – and it was funny!

The campaign gained coverage online and on social media, which sent traffic to www.goballsout.org.nz  where men could view a gallery of user generated Cock & Balls, find a route near them and view an engaging, step by step instructional video on how to check their testicles.

Within 24 hours of launching, the campaign was trending on Mashable and the BBC, it secured over 400 editorial mentions internationally, 86% of men 15-39 in NZ were reached across the campaign period, 71% increase in awareness that exercise helps prevent testicular cancer, and the video got viewed over four million times. Hundreds of Cock & Balls were created and shared.

This PR campaign was simple, very effective and most importantly took a campaign and truly made it creative, fun and engaging. No cock-ups here… well quite a few actually.

BrewDog Announces World First Craft Beer Hotel!

Ever imagined a hotel that has beer-filled hot tubs? Well, it’s time to stop dreaming because it could soon be a reality.

Due to open in 2018, Brewdog has announced that it will be building the world’s first craft beer hotel in Columbus Ohio. Guests can look forward to fully-stocked mini bars, beer on tap in rooms, beer-themed toiletries and spa treatments and brewing tank hot tubs, which can of course be filled with beer.

The project has already passed its funding target, thanks to crowd funding and will be built alongside its brand new state of the art, 100,000 square foot brewery, which founders James Watt and Martin Dickie say will help them explore amazing new flavours and brewing techniques.

This campaign may have been to help raise money and awareness of the hotel but something tells us that the money raised will be put into the state of the art brewery. Brewdog created a video and photoshopped imagery to show people what the hotel will look like, but this may never exist. The hotel may or may not get built, but it’s a good visual ploy to grab people’s attention and raise funds. Ellen Scott, a journalist from Metro, also doesn’t believe the hotel will become a reality.

This particular campaign has already been covered in national online titles such as The Mail Online, The Independent, The Telegraph, Metro and high traffic website – The Lad Bible.

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

Each week the Sunny Bird PR team research PR campaigns that have made their way into the media and choose one to share that demonstrates effectiveness, reach, simplicity, message and in some cases the opposite – how not to execute a PR campaign. Every month the team chooses their personal favourites and here we deliver them - The Good, The Bad and The Viral from the PR Campaign world.

This month we present a fashion designer using a dating app to showcase his latest collection, a florist attacking the big apple with guerrilla bouquets and some uncomfortable seating options on Mexico City’s pubic transport.

Fashion Show Livestreamed on… Grindr

In the ever competitive and ferocious world of fashion, designers are always on the hunt for the next big thing, not just when it comes to their designs but also how they showcase them.

British fashion label, J.W. Anderson, is known as the darling of London Collections Men and has a reputation for the unexpected but no one saw this partnership coming: J.W. Anderson announced that he would be livestreaming his latest collection for the very first time and exclusively on the infamous male only dating app, Grindr.

Although this move is a first from the fashion world and most definitely daring, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Grindr has an impressive seven million users across 192 countries who were all directed from the app to a digital destination where the video of the latest collection was shown live. Compare this to the last showing of J.W. Anderson’s that aired on YouTube and only achieved five thousand views over six months.

According to Grindr, the show was watched by hundreds of thousands of men with about a third of them viewing the live event and the rest watching the loop which was available for 24 hours afterward. As well as reaching a much larger audience for his fashion show, J.W. Anderson also achieved coverage in a multitude of titles as the news of his partnership hit the media. The New York Times was the publication primed to ‘break’ the news with others following suit including Vogue, The Guardian, Event Magazine, the Drum and many more to boot.

There is another element to this PR campaign that helped make it a success, both J.W. Anderson and Grindr are represented by the same PR agency highlighting an often overlooked reason to employ a PR agency rather than taking it in house – agencies will have connections with other brands that can work well together with you and yours.

‘Flowers For The People’ - Thistle Brighten Your Day!

If only we lived in New York and could experience this fabulous display on our commute to work! It’s certainly an Instagram-able image for any creative in New York to take a snap or cheeky selfie… and that’s exactly what the mastermind behind this idea wants you to do.

If you live in New York, chances are you’ve come across these large bold, colourful flower arrangements in random locations around the city. These eye catching installations are so striking and ‘banksey-esque’ that they’ve got curious New Yorkers thinking on who’s behind the guerrilla bouquets.

The mystery is now solved, Lewis Miller is the florist responsible for the city's recent rash of "Flower Flashes," a series of decorative floral arrangements that have popped up in places ranging from city landmarks, such as Central Park, to more surprising spots, like a public bin. Miller’s goal? To simply bring joy to citizens daily commutes: “Gifting flowers to New Yorkers is a simple idea that I have been thinking about for years,” Lewis says, “I am in the business of fantasy and flowers, and it’s my job to transform key moments in my clients’ lives into joyful, everlasting memories. I wanted to recreate a similar feeling for the everyday city-dwellers and tourists of New York City.”

The initial idea began when Miller and his team placed over 2,000 flowers at the John Lennon Memorial in Central Park. They were delighted with the response when strangers stopped to appreciate the arrangement. "That was my goal, my vision. Create an emotional response through flowers. And in this age of social media, we saw the fruits of our labour and were instantly rewarded via Instagram and other social media platforms. We got to see how our idea translated in real time with hundreds of selfies and photographs documenting the flowers throughout the course of the day. It was one of the most rewarding and gratifying 'events' I have produced," Miller said.

Not only is this campaign eye-catching but there is no sign of it stopping. Miller has said that he wants to expand his creations and hopes to share them with all corners of the Earth. The floral campaign has already been covered by Vogue and Architectural Digest this week and images of his creations have been shared on Instagram with the hashtag #LMDxNYC

To find out more about Lewis’s idea behind ‘Flowers For The People’ check out his blog post about their first ever ‘Flower Flash’ here!

PR Stunt Highlights Sexual Assault On Public Transport

A new style of train seat has suddenly appeared on Mexico City’s metro system and it was instantly labelled as inappropriate, uncomfortable and embarrassing. The seat was designed purely to raise this reaction and to highlight how often women are subjected to sexual assault and harassment whilst using the transport system.

The Metro seat was moulded into the shape of a man’s chest and penis. Underneath the seat there was a label that read: "It is uncomfortable to sit here, but that is nothing compared to the sexual violence that women suffer on their daily journeys."

The seat is not a permanent fixture, but part of a campaign launched by UN Women and the Mexico City authority and a video showing the reactions from the general public has received over 900,000 views and has been shared worldwide. Many people have praised the idea, while others called it "sexist" and unfair to men as it paints all men as potential perpetrators. Regardless, this simple PR stunt has certainly raised awareness for a widespread problem and has sparked interest across the world with an attention-grabbing video and a controversial subject.

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

Each week the Sunny Bird PR team research PR campaigns that have made their way into the media and choose one to share that demonstrates effectiveness, reach, simplicity, message and in some cases the opposite – how not to execute a PR campaign. Every month the team chooses their personal favourites and here we deliver them - The Good, The Bad and The Viral from the PR Campaign world. This month we present a social media campaign which we have followed from its inception in January to its completion in March. We’ve also looked at the unlikely pairing of the NHS and dating app, Tinder, to promote organ donation and filling the bad category this month is a tasteless campaign from The London Dungeon for Valentine’s Day.

All Aboard for the Best Intern-ship!

This campaign offered the perfect antidote to the January blues as it whisked us away to the promise of golden, Caribbean beaches, sparkling waters, food and drink and even the promise of money.

Royal Caribbean, the luxurious cruise company, pipped the rest to the post by claiming 2017's first 'best job of the year' stunt. Although these stunts are now quite commonplace with more ‘best jobs’ around than ever before, this one does stand out from the crowd as it was promoted on instagram and was hiring for instagram.

Royal Caribbean announced that it was looking to recruit an intern via Instagram to ‘work’ on three of its cruise ships over the course of three weeks. The lucky recruit would get free food, drink and flights and also a healthy £3,000 in cash. Their role whilst on board the cruise ships travelling across the oceans was to be ‘a hybrid between a photographer, documentary maker and storyteller’ - that can be translated to 'taking envy-inducing pictures and sharing them on Royal Caribbean's Instagram account'.

Royal Caribbean's Managing Director for the UK and Ireland, Ben Bouldin, commented: ‘Our cruise holidays are filled with extraordinary moments and we want to find a talented storyteller who can help us capture the unique experiences that make holidays so special.’

What piqued our interest in this campaign was that Royal Caribbean had only chosen instagram as a platform – typically the age of the average cruiser is over 50 whilst recent statistics show that 90% of instagram users are under 35. The Instagram ‘job’ came after research revealed the photogenic platform had redefined the way people book holidays. The research behind the decision comes from a poll commissioned by Royal Caribbean to find out whether or not social media was overtaking traditional channels of inspiration such as holiday brochures and comparison sites. We’re very sure that Royal Caribbean knows what it’s doing here but we would like to understand the inner workings; is the brand attempting to draw in a younger crowd? Are under 35’s influencers on the over 50s? Our money goes on wealthy families looking to take that last family holiday before their kids fly the nest, they want something fancy that everyone will enjoy and Royal Caribbean seems like a good option – they are on Insta after all – they must be cool!

The coverage has been excellent so even if the Instagram route is flawed at least they’ve achieved a broad wave of PR off the back of this campaign. So far, we’ve spotted the piece in Condé Nast Traveller, Mirror, Metro, Express, Daily Star, CNBC and other media titles around the world.

And the Winner is…

The Sunny Bird PR team really liked this campaign from Royal Caribbean that was spotted back in January, so much so in fact that we have been keeping track on the campaign ever since.

Ciara Flynn, fought off stiff competition from over 75,000 applicants to win the travelling photographer’s dream job and become the official Instagrammer for Royal Caribbean. Ciara's winning photograph of two young Buddhist monks won her three weeks across three oceans with all expenses paid and even a cash prize of £3,000.

The competition was only open to UK and Irish candidates but that didn’t stop almost 350,000 people worldwide posting to the hashtag, hoping that their image might be considered.

The campaign was the brainchild of Ben Bouldin, Royal Caribbean's Managing Director UK and Ireland, and came in response to data showing that more and more people were using social media channels as inspiration when booking their holidays.

'We're confident that throughout the "Intern-ship", Ciara will be able to skilfully shoot similarly amazing moments on board our fleet, capturing the imaginations of the younger generation and inspiring them to consider cruising as their next big adventure.' 

And there we have it, Royal Caribbean are on the hunt for a younger cruiser and quite rightly picked Instagram as the ideal platform to sway this new demographic.

Royal Caribbean has produced a very effective campaign here that generated a huge increase on its social media as well as a tidal wave of coverage including The Mail Online, Metro, TTG media, Travel Weekly, India Times, Dublin People, the Express and many more.

The NHS Teamed up with Dating App Tinder to Find People the Perfect ‘match’

In recent years the NHS has struggled to create a strong and memorable message that encourages young people to sign up to the donation register and in July 2015 the rate of people giving blood and signing the organ donor register fell for the first time in a decade. In 2015, the NHS wanted to get their organ donation message out to a younger audience, so they teamed up with popular dating app Tinder to get their message in front of their core demographic.

The app is usually used to find people a romantic match, however for one fortnight, the app also encouraged users to become organ donors. When people swiped to ‘match’ a prospective love interest, a message appeared on the screen encouraging them to sign the organ donation register with a direct link to the website.

Tinder also created bespoke profiles for some of its more high profile members, including Olympic medallist Jade Jones and Made In Chelsea’s Jamie Laing. These profiles carried the donor symbol and when somebody ‘matched’ with them the user received a message saying ‘if only it was that easy for those in need of life-saving organs to find a match’.

The aim of the campaign was to educate and encourage people to sign up to the register and by targeting this popular dating app, they are directly reaching the younger demographic that they are focused on. It was a clever way to interact with a specific demographic and the campaign was executed in a memorable and effective way that took social media by storm.

London Dungeon Apologises for Dark Valentine’s Tweets

Valentine’s Day is traditionally known to be all lovey-dovey. You would think that taking your partner or family out to a popular tourist attraction around Valentine’s Day you would be greeted by a special ‘all things love’ event. This was not the case for all popular tourist destinations as London Dungeon took Valentine’s Day in a much darker direction this year.

The family tourist attraction had to apologise after a social media backlash over its Facebook and Twitter posts. The tourist attraction was posting dark humour-themed Valentine's jokes on social media, but many were seen by followers as tasteless and sexist if not downright aggressive and offensive.

One social media post read: “What’s the difference between your job and a dead prostitute? Your job still sucks!”

Another said: “Jack the Ripper just messaged. He wants to Netflix and kill.”

Some posts made comments about the appearance of women: “I love a girl that’s a good eater. Female translation: you’re fat.”

A spokesperson for London Dungeon said: “We apologise that our social posts caused offence. Our ‘Dark Valentine’ campaign was a range of posts aimed to highlight the darker side of history and create debate and conversation. As a brand we strive to entertain our guests so they can enjoy the London Dungeon experience – both in our attraction and on social media. However, on this occasion we recognise that some of the topics many felt were inappropriate and therefore we apologise for any offence caused.”

Even Ann Summers who was working with the tourist attraction for one of its Valentine’s Day events thought it was in bad taste. “It is really disappointing to see tweets which are overtly sexist and negative towards women – attitudes we absolutely do not tolerate – or support – at Ann Summers,” the playful lingerie chain told Metro.

At Sunny Bird PR we believe this stunt was done on purpose to create heated discussions in print and on social and to this end it was very effective as it went wild on social and was also picked up by The Guardian, Metro, The Telegraph, Huffington Post and ITV News.

PR Campaigns – The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The Sunny Bird PR team has found the best of the good, the bad and the viral PR Campaigns. This week brings a diverse mix of campaigns including making it easier to give money to the homeless, a designer who is inspiring women after the US election, a 4D tunnel that stimulates all five senses and two unique alcohol brands who want to be THE spirit people drink.

A Contactless Payment Jacket

That Helps You Give Money To The Homeless

 Amsterdam-based company N=5, has created the 'Helping Heart' jacket which features a contactless payment touch pad to help people give donations to the homeless using their contactless bank cards. By hovering your card over the pad on the jacket you are able to donate one euro to charity for the homeless.

The idea behind this concept is to make it easier for people to donate, as many people do not carry cash or change on them nowadays, preferring to use their card to make payments. Secondly, most people would love to help the homeless but many people worry that by giving money directly to them that you will inadvertently support their addictions.

The ‘Helping Heart’ jacket aims to alleviate this concern as once the donation has been made, the wearer of the coat can only redeem the money at an official homeless shelter in order to ensure that the money is never received as cash but in other benefits such as accommodation for the night, a shower or food. The money from the jacket can also be exchanged for vocational training courses and to create savings.

The jacket is currently in the prototype stage and being tested by several homeless people in Amsterdam. This PR campaign has made waves in Amsterdam and has also been featured on Mashable, Elle.co.uk and The Debrief. The gift of giving never sounded so easy, rewarding and helpful.

The ‘Dear Women Project’ Encourages Us

To Write To Women Who Inspire Us

The US election had everyone on the edge of their seats, but some weren’t that happy with the outcome. When Hillary Clinton lost the US election, women all around the world were shocked, including Chicago-based designer, Emily Asher. Emily found comfort after the shocking election results by remembering all the strong women in her life and the influential women who had become her role models.

Open letters thanking Hillary for her role in the election were being printed at the time and Emily had a thought - why shouldn’t we all write to the women who’ve inspired us?

“I started thinking about all the great women who had come before Hilary and all those in my own life whose words and faces had given me comfort and strength. I felt the power of their accomplishments and their words lifting me up. It was a feeling I wanted to bottle up and send to all the women in my life.”

This resulted in the Dear Women Project being born. The idea is to write a letter of thanks or encouragement to ten strong women in your life - family, friends, celebrities, politicians - and ask them to do the same, creating a chain of thanks and support.

Emily created a series of notecards featuring portraits of strong women from the past and present, which can be used to send letters to inspirational women, with 25% of profits going to non-profit organisations supporting women’s rights and causes. A six-month subscription to the Dear Women Project supplies two cards per month and costs $55.00 (£45). The two cards will feature different influential, famous women. Delivery is currently limited to the US but Emily is looking into delivering worldwide in the near future.

Emily hopes this campaign will encourage people to write to the women in their lives and that the handwritten notes the inspirational women receive will be kept and treasured. For more information, visit https://www.dearwomenproject.com/

This inspiring campaign has been covered by online press in the US and has also been covered by Metro, Huffington Post and Stylist in the UK.

A Kraken Valentine

It’s not always the campaigns with the biggest budgets which turn my head (in fact this is rarely the case), what I do appreciate is a campaign that’s original, knows its audience, taps into what’s going on and most importantly – makes me smile. My favourite rum brand (OK, OK, I might be biased) has achieved all of this with its latest campaign for Valentine’s Day.

Spiced rum brand, Kraken, is helping pirates and landlubbers alike to find love this year with the help of the hashtag #Rumantics and of course, the legendary Kraken Octopus featured on the front of every bottle who we now find out is called….Ken.

Also known as the ‘cupid of cephalopods', Ken is The Kraken's alternative to Paddy McGuinness or Cilla Black. Rummy singles are invited to tweet a selfie to @KrakenRumUK using the hashtag #Rumantics. A shortlist will be chosen for Ken to whittle down using his dating powers to two lucky daters who will be chosen to go on a special Kraken date together. The whole selection process will be filmed for fans to watch and will be broadcast on The Kraken's Facebook page on 10th February.

For those not chosen for the special Kraken date, some lucky folk will win Kraken Dating Kits which include everything needed to create the ‘Any Port In A Storm’ cocktail, original glassware, black roses and black candles, Kraken hoodies and a Kraken Valentine’s card. As well as gifts, guests can also attend Kraken haunts in London and Brighton over the Valentine's weekend, and enjoy a night dedicated to the festival of romance featuring a mystic character who will read love fortunes. Party-goers will also be able to win drinks and cocktail prizes.

This campaign is not designed to achieve print coverage (although it has made the trade titles); it has purely been created to drive traffic to its social media platforms. We’ll keep a beady eye on those audience figures over the next few weeks to see how this campaign blossoms.

Virgin Holiday – Tunnel to Barbados

Virgin Holidays wanted to create a disruptive, engaging experiential PR stunt to raise awareness of its direct holidays from Manchester to Barbados.

To do this Manchester based Smoking Gun PR decided to bring Barbados to Manchester for the day – with a little extra glamour brought by actress Michelle Keegan.

They did this by creating the world’s first 4D tunnel – complete with sounds and smells of the Caribbean that bought Manchester alive for one sunny day in June.

There were four main objectives for this campaign, these included:

·         Generating awareness of Virgin Holiday’s package holidays and direct flights from       Manchester to Barbados.

·         Creating an event that would build exposure across all media channels

·         Enable Virgin Holidays retail staff to capture sales leads on the ground

·         Capture the essence of the Virgin Brand – something brave with a touch of glamour!

To meet these objectives the agency commissioned a leading international 3D artist to create an illusionary tunnel which appeared overnight seemingly going to Barbados.  This painting was located in Spinning Fields, Manchester to take advantage of the great footfall in the area and on-target demographic.

Michelle Keegan was recruited to appear ‘inside’ the illusion – adding to media interest and underlining the ‘Manchester’ key message – this was to be her first corporate appearance since leaving Coronation Street adding to media interest.

The public were invited to interact with the illusion; picture sharing was facilitated on site using screens and backed up via a social media gallery, enabling further reach of the stunt, viral spread and also to enable data capture for sales leads.

Virgin Holiday retail offers were supported via the event, with branded sun glasses and water bottles being given away to help drive sharing of the event hash tag #MCRTunneltoBarbados.

Virgin Holidays’ retail staff were also on site to secure sales leads from the public.

As a result this PR campaign achieved 19 pieces of coverage including the Mail Online, OK Magazine, Hello magazine, The Mirror, Daily Star and two pieces in the Manchester Evening News – resulting in a combined circulation of 400 million.

Five tweets were also made by Michelle Keegan, #MCRTunneltoBarbados was trending on twitter in Manchester plus tweets of support were given from The Sun (Manchester office) I Love MCR, Manchester Gazette, Manchester Evening News, CityLife, Reveal & Hello!

Sipsmith Gin Host Winter Lounge Sessions

Step away from the hustle and bustle of London life and the harsh cold winter winds to find yourself in a cosy hygge embrace. Back in December, The Fellow Geronimo Pub (located near King's Cross station) joined forces with Sipsmith's, passionate pioneers of London’s artisan gin to bring back the pioneering hot gin experience for ‘ginthusists’ and to create a cosy winter drinking lounge. The purpose of the pop up event is not only to give city-dwellers a warm winter experience and share Sipsmith’s specialist winter drinks, but also to place Sipsmith into the minds of people ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season.

The brand launched the Sipsmiths pop up lounge on November 24th which was open to the general public until December 31st. Guests were able to discover some of Sipsmith’s winter warmers alongside staple favourites, in a setting that includes a roaring fire. On the launch day, the Sipsmith team were on hand to guide guests through the history of gin punches and the menu for the month. Sipsmith has done a couple of pop up lounges now, dotted all over London as they have been really successful and have received a lot of praise and I’m sure we are going to see a lot more!

Guests had the opportunity to taste a number of creations and become immersed in a brave new world of hot gin. The Fellow Geronimo Pub received lots of good reviews on its page, one being “Perfect evening for Gin lovers – I have been converted to Sipsmith”. The event didn’t get much coverage but the same event held at Ham Yard Hotel Roof Terrace in Soho, received a lot of coverage in the Metro online, Timeout London online and The Times.

PR Campaigns – The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The time has come again where we give you a fresh new round up of good, bad and viral campaigns. This week we have looked at some wonderful workouts, a confusing tube sign, an unusual dining setting and two very different hair product endorsement campaigns.

POM #wonderfulworkouts

Health juice drink ‘POM Wonderful’ was set to launch a single serving bottle and they wanted this new product to engage with a broad female audience who had general interest in healthy, fitness and functional foods. To do this it hired Escapade PR to create a fun PR campaign that would attract great brand awareness.

To connect with its target audience the agency decided to collaborate with personal trainer and apprentice candidate Katie Bulmer-Cooke to create four ‘wonderful workout’ exercise videos.  These videos were created with the brand ethos in mind:

‘Small lifestyle changes can have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing’.

They were short in length but aimed to be powerful in content. These videos were a hit with many bloggers and YouTubers including ‘A Mummy Too’ who blogged about these short and simple exercises for her vast amount of followers to copy and try out for themselves.

This simple PR campaign gained much attraction and coverage, with 26 pieces of coverage and 145,700 impressions across Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo.

Amazon High-jacks Westminster Tube Station and Confuses Tourists

Londoners were left puzzled after tube station Westminster appeared to be renamed ‘Webminster’ overnight in a PR stunt. Amazon replaced tube signs with a new name to advertise the launch of a new London internet service to help businesses. Many confused tourists and travellers noticed the swapped signs and questioned what was going on – with many taking to Twitter to voice their concerns.

Buxton Water previously created a similar stunt whereby Canada Water tube station was renamed to ‘Buxton Water’ during the London Marathon. This stunt received a similar reception with many people highlighting the impractical nature of it when it came to tourists. The Webminster campaign was covered by The Evening Standard and Metro.

Table For One? How About 20 Strangers Instead?

With the rise of solo travel trending in 2017, we like this ‘social experiment’ (PR campaign) from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines which worked to engage solo travellers at the airport.  Unlike railway stations and trains, or even buses, where co-passengers tend to break the ice sooner rather than later, airports and flights can be cold and lonely if you're not travelling with family members or friends.

KLM decided to break the ice at the time of year most associated with being surrounded by friends and family – Christmas. KLM gave its advertising agency the following brief: instead of being preoccupied with mobile phones or books, what would it take to convince single travellers in this festive season to bond with strangers and create some delightful memories?

Enter the Bonding Buffet. Like all powerful advertising ideas, at the heart of the Bonding Buffet (seeing past the questionable name of course) lies simplicity and hearty human insight. A giant buffet table laid out with Christmas dinner - all a lofty 4.5 metres up in the upper echelons of Amsterdam Airport. The table would only come down to acceptable human reaching and eating level once all 20 seats had been filled.

The whole event was videoed and shared on social with some astounding view rates including 12.75 million views on YouTube and 57 million views on Facebook.  KLM definitely wasn’t lonely this Christmas!

The Power of Product Endorsement

Endorsing products can have both a positive and negative return, depending on who’s endorsing the product or what the product is. These two campaigns show very different approaches, both focusing on different hair products…

Lidl Bit Strange Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton’s stardom didn’t come to light in a positive grace despite her Father owning the well-known Hilton hotel chain. Moving on from her promiscuous past, Paris Hilton has been working with Lidl to promote her range of hair styling products.

Before Christmas, hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton brought out a hair styling line with budget supermarket Lidl, which included a pink hairdryer, straighteners, curlers and a heated hair brush. The American star, announced the range on Twitter, with a snappy video in which she walks through a door, looks around a bit and flicks her hair from side to side.

Fans have been left rather surprised by the move. Paris is usually seen to be used to the finer things in life, so working with German discount supermarket – Lidl – was definitely a surprising move.

“OMG, I thought this was a joke? Lol,” said one fan on Twitter. Another said “Aldi is better.”

Consumers seemed confused with Paris’ new partnership with Lidl. Could this have be due to the lack of screen time Hilton has had over the past year or could this have been a campaign where consumers could experience a glimmer of the high life by purchasing one of her products. Regardless of the intention and motivation, this new line by Paris has been featured in titles such as Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Huffington Post, OK Magazine, and Scottish Daily Record.

Kirstie Alley Takes to Twitter to Rave About Rain Lillie Castor Oil

It's not every day that a Hollywood actress promotes a small business without being paid, but that's exactly what happened to Rain Lillie Castor Oil, an organic beauty product that has received two Twitter shout-outs from Kirstie Alley.

"In LOVE with this product... NOT a paid sponsor, just a huge fan!" Alley Tweeted on November 27th. Less than an hour later, Alley followed up with, "I mean, weird pic but my hair is 50% fuller now! No extensions, NO tricks… & I'm ancient :)"

Despite Alley saying they weren’t sponsored posts, there is speculation that she was paid to write those tweets.

Rain Lillie launched back in the summer of 2015 and has claimed to not have paid any celebrities to promote the product.

Something as simple as a Tweet can bring great simple promotion to a product. However something as simple as a celebrity’s reputation can really boost sales too.