Promoting your on the ground stunts online – a marriage made in marketing heaven
I’m a little tired of hearing about the wonders of social media and the stunning achievements of the PR 2.0 world. Anybody who’s ever done the hard work of promoting in online video knows that for every thousand views, you’ve got a ton of leg work. Those “Susan Boyle” moments just don’t come around that often.
I may get called a Luddite for this, but there simply isn’t a better public relations tactic than the good old-fashioned STUNT. Jay Conrad Levinson may have coined the term ‘guerilla marketing’ to try to make it seem like a fresh concept, but ever since the first beauty pageant to find Miss Dove soap, creative stunts and promotions have made the difference for brands. And by combining those stunts with the power of online promotion, you’ve got a wicked good strategy. What better example than the Old Spice campaign…many would say this was a red hot viral campaign but really, it was a clever promotional idea launched with an ad campaign, but fueled by strategic use of Twitter and YouTube to make it seem current and new. That’s the beauty of integrated marketing.
Most people think big promotions have to cost quite a bit of money, but really it just takes a creative idea. London-based Taylor Herring Public Relations is arguably one of the best agencies in the world at truly creative, unusual promotions. Taylor Herring provides public relations for events like movie premiers and television shows, as well as PR for major brands like Honda and Google. But what they, and their online division also do very well, is create unusual experiences for their audiences that might be eyebrow-raising, but still fit the image of the brand. And although they are the people that created the world’s first ‘live’ TV commercial, the campaign that got my attention was one they did for a comedy channel’s stand-up season on UK television. Instead of something huge, they thought up the idea of simply finding the world’s oldest jokes and created a “Historical Humour Study” including the oldest jokes and one liners. Complete with a resident professorial expert, the idea was contained in a simple press release. Yet it was so unique, the agency garnered millions of impressions for its client. (You can read the entire case study on the Taylor Herring site here)
Here are a few simple tips that you should follow when planning your own ‘stunt’:
- First, make darn sure it’s original. There’s nothing worse than Joe Jonas doing yet another parody of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’. Don’t try to riff off someone else and scour the Internet to make sure no one else has tried it before you. (Unless it’s in a different language….stealing from the French or Japanese can work nicely)
- If you want TV, make sure there is a visual aspect to the stunt. Don’t just video tape something because you think it needs a YouTube component. You’ve got to have interesting things to watch (note: kids and puppies are always good)
- Launch it like it’s the second coming of…well, your brand at least. Take it seriously, in other words. Do a formal press release, invite the media, and most of all…make sure YOU don’t treat it like a joke, even if you think it’s just a “silly PR stunt”.
- Plan out the social media and online components as strategically and carefully as you can. Don’t just put “will tweet and Facebook this thing like crazy” on the plan or creative brief. Remember, the Old Spice guy got us all tweeting to see if we could get a personal response via YouTube. The online component was just as daring and creative as the stunt itself.
Combining a genius promotion with a powerful online boost is one of the best strategies in today’s market. Face it, the guy’s always going to be walking around with a sandwich board. Now he’s just tweeting and getting videotaped for YouTube at the same time.
Tags: planning a PR stunt, PR promotions, PR stunts, Public Relations, shameless promotion, small business marketing, small business promotion, social media, Taylor Herring, twitter, working a PR stunt
August 25th, 2010 at 7:53 am
i agree that we need some creative ideas to optimize the promotion…
August 26th, 2010 at 7:48 am
i agree with ghozy.
great post
August 27th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
It seems like the problem with stunts (even when they are successful) is the traffic they bring has a very low conversion rate. While the Old Spice guy was phenomenal at generating traffic, the campaign still failed in the sense that it didn’t really increase product sales. Yet, there are low budget (the cost of a webcam and computer) videos that private individuals produce and create a new market all on their own. Very tricky business.
August 27th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I think you have to understand the conversion you’re looking for with stunts or PR in general…in this case, it’s not immediate sales. It’s public relations impressions, that then lead to more sales as the result of an integrated strategy. So the Old Spice man may not have made us run to the store looking for it…but it generated ‘buzz’ and I’m sure the other components of the program (ads, in store promotions, etc) then are strengthened and THEIR conversions to sales increase. Or, it could be simply to increase brand recognition…the next time your salesman calls it’s no longer ‘cold’ as the potential client is familiar with your brand. There are all kinds of conversions, and sales is just the end in a long chain.