“PR is a more complex process than previously and the landscape of potential influencers you will have to engage with has become more complex. The place to start and address this challenge by rethinking how we do the planning. This has been broken down into sections:
- Insights – to better understand audience behaviour and options.
- Influence – to understand who are the most powerful conversationalists on social platforms
- Messaging – to sense check the language that an organization uses in its Communications.” Ged Carroll
Game of thrones war of Winterfell is almost nothing compared to the war for creative ideas in PR. This war is battled for attention, trust, against algorithms and fake news.
Some people think of PR professionals are not the creative type – except when it comes to hatching wild PR stunts or gimmicks. They couldn’t be more wrong. Creativity plays a huge part in a PR person’s daily work, refreshing concepts, figuring out new modes of presenting a story, creating unforgettable pitchings for the press.
Are PR agencies creative?
According to The Holmes Report’s Creativity in PR study, which surveys PR executives all over the world, 68% of PR agency respondents say their clients are more likely to approach the PR team for “big creative ideas” than in the past. This shows a great shift from when people thought of a PR agency as a press office, it seems CEOs and decision makers started to realize that continuous communications on a multitude of channels require PR people who must come up with original approaches to storytelling to break through the noise.
Wild PR stunts
All right, we need awareness and wild, crazy, unconventional and brave ideas but we need them to also deliver on effectiveness. What can be the tricks or secret ingredient to not go over the edge and create something that reaches people? Can this still be a data-rich environment? Sure. If we take some time to inject some of the best PR stunts on PRexamples.com we might find the key ingredients.
Lego launches Braille Bricks to help blind children learn through play
Insight: Kids love to play and build with LEGO, however, there might be some more in the building bricks than just playing. What if we could help children learn Braille in a fun way while helping them experience the joy of LEGO.
Emotion: To be left out of creating a new world. In order to do that, you have to see or feel what kind of bricks, parts you are holding which is not available for blind or visually impaired children.
Stunt: creativity has always been connecting dots and this way from two known things creating something new. It is that simple and yet brilliant. Braille Bricks has been created having numbers and letters on them in Braille so children with and without sight can play and learn at the same time.
HBO hides six “Iron Thrones” in secret locations around the world
Insight: It is clear that the world is full of fans of Game of Thrones and we know that we are currently experiencing a wide range of campaigns that ride the waves of “Winter”. HBO must be on top and they knew it when created a buzz like never before. How far would fans go for the throne?
Emotion: Game of Thrones is all about adventure and discovery, while the main characters are heading towards their fates and time runs out. Let’s make people feel this too. Let them become the hunters for the Throne.
Stunt: HBO for the final season had six versions of the iconic Iron Throne hidden in secret locations around the world for fans to find. They have created a microsite ForTheThrone which contains actually three quests (Bleed, Quest, Create) for the fans.
LinkedIn to open pop-up pub for job seekers
Insight: LinkedIn is a place where people build professional connections and look for a job, or new talents. With the case of GDPR people in cities like London – where handing in CV-s for job vacancies were a big thing – people are forced to send their CV through the internet. No personal connection.
Emotion: Job seeking can be stressful, we become CV sending robots with no real face-to-face contact with the future team or boss, until we are invited to a job interview. Not a nice feeling right?
Stunt: LinkedIn has announced that they will be opening a special pop-up pub to help job seekers. How convenient to bring what is online to offline? LinkedIn encourages Londoners to interact with their community while job hunting, furthermore they will be offering exclusive live job vacancies from companies, allow visitors to have professional headshots captured, receive career advice. You only have to be over 18 and have a LinkedIn profile.
How to hatch PR stunts like that?
LinkedIn careers expert Darain Faraz highlight the main points of the stunts: “By engaging your network and sharing, posting and connecting with your LinkedIn community, you can get closer to the job you want. That’s why we’ve set up The Linked Inn – to bring this to life and demonstrate the job-seeking process needn’t be as time-intensive as you might think.”
You got to have an insight into your brand and audience as well. Know what feelings and message you wish to deliver and then comes the tool, the item you are delivering it on, it best is a solution, an experience. Together we can connect the dots and create unique PR stunts! Tell us your current message you would love to deliver in a creative way!
