PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

With the beginning of a new month upon us, we’ve got a range of new and exciting, successful campaigns to share, focusing on travel intern-ships, an interactive health billboard, a frozen food campaign that has taken a new approach to finding time for ourselves and an innovative service that everyone believed was a hoax, but is now due to launch in 2018.

Swedish Billboard That Coughs at Smokers

A Swedish pharmacy chain has used a digital advertising board to cough at passers-by who smoke. The ad board uses extremely sensitive smoke detectors and when activated it plays a video of people coughing. The idea behind the stunt is to encourage people to carry out their new year’s resolution to quit smoking.

Although the company’s intention is to encourage people to stop smoking, it seems that the stunt also unintentionally shames members of the public. Due to this, the public has been divided on whether the campaign is ethically sound. Either way, the campaign has garnered a lot of attention for the company - so in PR terms it is a success. The campaign has been featured on The Mirror Online, the Huffington Post and The Express Online. We wonder if this would be as successful if it was run in the UK?

All Aboard for the Best Intern-ship!

This campaign offers the perfect antidote to the January blues as it whisks 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, has 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 is 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 will 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, will 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 UK Managing Director Ben Bouldin has said, ‘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’s really interesting about this campaign is that Royal Caribbean has only chosen instagram as a platform for this activity – typically the age of the average cruiser is over 50 whilst recent statistics show that 90% of Instagram users are under the age of 35. The Instagram ‘job’ comes after research reveals the platform has 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 is 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? My 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 Instagram 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.

Amazon Prime Air is Flying Sky High!

In 2013, Amazon Prime announced that it would be creating a brand new delivery service to add to its forever growing company – by flying drones through the air to deliver packages! Press and consumers all believed that this was a PR stunt to see Amazon as an innovative and forward thinking company. But not many believed that it would follow through with the idea.

Come December 16th 2016, Amazon Prime Air proved everyone wrong and launched its first successful delivery - by air - within 13 minutes! No press or consumers were invited to view the first flight, which may have been due to the possibility of the flight failing and would have looked bad on them; however Amazon filmed the successful delivery and has now shared its content with press.

While deliveries will be available seven days a week from mid-2018, the drones can only fly in daylight hours and in good weather. Currently, the trial is only open to two customers, but Amazon says it hopes to expand this service to dozens of customers in the coming months. For those customers, Prime Air is available for no extra cost. This service will offer customers a lot of benefits such as guaranteed delivery within 30 minutes and may possibly save money on delivery vans, however there are cons…

The drones can only carry items weighing less than 2.6kg and can only be delivered to those who own a large garden and who live near the delivery depot. There is currently only one delivery depot which is located in Cambridgeshire.

So is Amazon Prime Air as good as Amazon hoped after its first successful flight and being picked up by press? We’re not sure. Amazon has said however that with the official launch date not until 2018 there’s still plenty of time for any flaws to be ironed out.

On the back of the promotional video of its first flight, press such as The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Telegraph have covered the service before the official launch next year while bloggers and technology experts have been invited to the main depot in Cambridgeshire to see the service first hand.

Will Amazon Prime Air fly sky high or will it plummet to the ground? We believe it will be a great success if it continues to trial the service over the coming year and something that Amazon can add to its building reputation.

Frozen Food and Beauty….an Unlikely Pairing?

Frozen food brand, LowLow Ready Meals, wanted to deliver a stand out one month campaign in January during the New Year diet season. The brand wanted consumers to see frozen foods as a healthy option and that it isn’t just fresh food that’s good for you.

The brand wanted to broaden the appeal of LowLow’s frozen meals across its target demographic of 30 – 54 year old women and overall build brand awareness of the range.

The unlikely part of this campaign was that the frozen food brand decided to team up with ITV’s This Morning’s celebrity make-up artist Bryony Blake to have as their brand ambassador.

We know what you’re thinking, frozen food and beauty - it doesn’t quite blend however the campaign was called ‘Take 5 and make a difference’ and its aim was to encourage consumers to spend an extra 5 minutes on themselves – whilst it took 5 minutes for the frozen ready meal to cook in the oven. This included quick and easy 5 minute beauty and make-up tips provided by Bryony.

To support this campaign the PR agency ran a social media campaign including a live Facebook chat with Bryony herself. A dedicated micro site was also created which included many ‘how to’ videos and make up tips.

Furthermore two media events were hosted ahead of the official campaign launch during which journalists could meet with LowLow development chefs, sample the range and learn about the ‘Take 5 and make a difference’ campaign direct from Bryony Blake herself.

Plus, to top it all off, competitions ran throughout January in TV Choice and across five women’s lifestyle websites.

The results? The campaign reached over 30 million potential consumers, achieved 70 pieces of coverage including OK!, Daily Mail, The Sun, Metro, Woman’s Own and Real People. The social media campaign reached 330,000 consumers and the competition attracted more than 144,000 entries.

The success of the campaign is definitely owed to using Bryony Blake as a brand ambassador, without her we’re not sure it would have achieved the same success. We’re not entirely sure on the frozen food, beauty combination however it evidently works - so hats off to this PR agency!

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

We are kicking off the New Year with positive, upbeat campaigns as January is well known for being the most depressing month of the year – urgh! Despite us all throwing down the chocolate, cake and alcohol this month and frantically grabbing the fruit and veg, we have all chosen campaigns that relate back to food!

David Lloyd – Run For Your Bun PR Campaign

Every New Year sees an influx of ‘new year, new you’ themed PR stunts along with campaigns that have a huge emphasis on health and weight loss.

This January, health centre and gym company David Lloyd is offering its members the unique opportunity to earn their food in exchange for working up a sweat. Following new research that reveals that the average office worker spends 90% of their working day sat down and not moving, David Lloyd Clubs is launching a new café giving customers the chance to ‘pay’ for their lunch with a six-minute micro workout. The café, called ‘Run For Your Bun’, aims to encourage workers to be more active during the working day and highlight the important role that a balanced diet and regular exercise plays in a healthy lifestyle.

Diners will be invited to choose a lunch item from the menu prior to beginning a high intensity interval workout to be used as their method of payment for the meal. Once the workout has been completed, guests are then invited to take a seat in the café area and refuel with their delicious chosen lunch.

The quick ‘HIIT’ (high-intensity interval training) workout includes one-minute on a rowing machine, one minute on a spin bike and one minute on a treadmill, as well as 60-seconds of sit-ups, bodyweight squats and lunges, with 30-second rest periods between each exercise.

The lunch options at Run For Your Bun:

• Smashed avocado with cherry tomatoes, goats cheese, chilli and lime on toasted wholemeal bread
• Giant couscous with apricots, raisins, pine nuts, lemon, coriander and fresh basil with a balsamic dressing
• Grilled chicken breast burger with tomato, red onion and garlic mayo
• Pitta pockets with mixed salad and a choice of smoked salmon or grilled halloumi filling

Run For Your Bun café was open to the public on Wednesday 11th, Thursday 12th and Friday 13th January, between 11:40am and 3pm each day. The first session sold out due to the great PR coverage that this campaign has received.

A Lighter Way to Start the Year

With talk of Blue Mondays, diets and detoxing we welcomed the new outdoor advert from Maltesers. The nation’s favourite ‘Lighter Way to Enjoy Chocolate’ brand has been championing disability and promoting inclusiveness for a while now with its ‘Look on the Light side of Disability’ campaign. The campaign kicked off last year with Maltesers featuring disabled actors in its TV commercials. Mars consulted disability charity Scope while developing the ads and said it wanted to open a conversation with other brands about how to better represent the UK's diverse population through advertising.

World Braille Day is on the 4th January every year and to mark this year, Maltesers created a special build OOH (out of home) advert display at a Farringdon bus station in London, to raise awareness of the day and of course promote the brand as well. The billboard advert is made entirely of braille and is the latest addition to the campaign, which also saw the first ever TV advert to air completely in sign language.

We think it’s great that such a big name, household brand is breaking down barriers by normalising disability with its advertising and communications strategy – and even better adding a sprinkle of humour.

Whitworths: Shot Property

PR agency WPR was tasked with launching a new concept in healthier snacking – Shots by Whitworths.  Under 100 calories these were a hero product internally – and quickly became one externally too.

The challenge was to use the Shot products to secure product placement and sampling opportunities – with the overall objective of increasing awareness of the entire Whitworths snacking collection.

So, to stand out with key press contacts, the agency developed ‘snack time’ media packs – including a full range of products, complete with an alarm clock set to 11am, urging the press to remember ‘snack o’clock’. The packs were distributed through a series of one-to-one press briefings where they were well received – with titles such as OK!, Homemaker and Love It! tweeting photos of their own happy snack time moments.

In order to get the Shot products directly into the hands of consumers, WPR worked with the organisers of relevant events to distribute a total of 22,000 samples. This included product visibility at London Fashion Week, Red Magazine Fashion Evenings, Clothes Show Live, Ideal Home Show at Christmas and Prima – as well as key magazine editor events.

All this was accompanied by a strong trade focus to attract the attention of key buyers. They ensured that Whitworths’ spokespeople were leading commentary around healthier snacking and unique product offerings, during the launch period.

Following the press visits, key titles such as OK!, Healthy Food Guide, Morrisons Magazine, Your Home and Woman’s Own Diet Special all featured various flavours of the Shot products – and other snacking options within the range.

Trade wise, thanks to attendance at the Lunch! show and PR support, Shots were awarded the Gold in the innovation category.  This accolade has brought the product to the attention of even more key buyers and resulted in some brilliant new outlets for the brand.

Fair to say that Shots weren’t the only heroes for Whitworths that year.

Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Made, Shared and Gave this Christmas

Kellogg’s Rice Krispies partnered with ‘Toys for Tots’ and Instagram Star Misterkrisp (Jessica Siskin) to help give joy to children in need. Kellogg's Rice Krispies encouraged families to embrace the holiday season of giving with the "Treats 4 Toys" program. For every Rice Krispies treat they made and shared using #Treats4Toys, Rice Krispies donated a gift to Toys for Tots to help bring a little joy to a child in need.

For every original photo posted to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram between September 26th 2016, and January 1st 2017, using #Treats4Toys, Rice Krispies donated $10.00 to Toys for Tots (up to $50,000 total), which was used to help buy toys for children in the US.

So who are Toys for Tots and Jessica Siskin?

Toys for Tots Foundation is the fundraising and support organisation for the US Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. The foundation was created at the request of the US Marine Corps and has supported Toys for Tots since 1947. The mission of the program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November and December each year and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community.

New York City-based food artist Jessica Siskin began making edible Rice Krispies Treat sculptures in December 2012. When Siskin realised that food colouring could be added to the side-of-the-box recipe, she felt an immediate impulse to make a Rice Krispies Treats shaped cheeseburger. She continued to experiment with Rice Krispies Treats recipes, techniques, and designs until Misterkrisp was born in October 2013.

Titles such as GoodHouseKeeping.com and Metro US and The Daily Mail UK have covered this generous, light hearted news story.