4 Creative PR Campaigns from May
We all get creative mental blocks from time to time. And that includes coming up with award-winning PR campaigns. To help inspire you, we’ve picked out a few of the best PR campaigns from May. Find out what Visit Sweden, McDonalds, Nikon and Paramount Pictures got up to last month:
Sweden Lists Itself on Airbnb
From a London Eye capsule suspended 443 feet in the sky to a luxury indoor forest: there have been some unique listings on Airbnb over the years. But there hasn’t been an entire country up for grabs, until Visit Sweden listed the country on the holiday rental website.
A collaboration between Airbnb and Visit Sweden, the campaign is part of a wider effort to promote the country’s ‘freedom to roam’ principle, which gives people the right to freely explore all public spaces across the country. The idea, which is protected by Swedish law, is that people don’t need to book accommodation to visit the country, they can grab a tent and freely access any of the publicly owned land.
‘It’s a home with all the necessities and amenities that any great home should have,’ the listing reads. ‘It’s a place where you can eat berries from the ground, sleep under the stars, swim in the lakes and roam freely.’
The simple stunt has done what it set out to do: generated lots of coverage in major newspapers and websites worldwide.
McDonald’s Introduces the Frork
McDonald’s has answered a problem that pretty much no one has, by creating a utensil to transport your French fries from the box to your mouth.
The frork allows you to slot fries inside, then scoop up dip before stuffing the lot in your mouth. Clearly, it’s absurd and just a massive PR stunt for McDonald’s new saucy burgers. But it’s paid off splendidly as everyone’s talking about it and people are desperately searching for ways to get hold of one.
Before you get too excited, the frork is not actually available for purchase. You can only get one at selected McDonald’s locations in the US when you buy one of their new burgers.
McDonald’s released an equally ridiculous advert to go with the frork. Watch it here.
The Nikon Vision Food Truck
If you’re familiar with the Nikon brand, you probably associate it with camera lenses. But their latest PR campaign looked to increase awareness of their production of lenses for glasses.
To highlight the importance of eye tests, the brand created a pop-up restaurant in the form of a mobile food truck. The menu was set out like an eye test chart, meaning that those who couldn’t read all the ingredients weren’t able to order key items. No need to worry though. Anyone who struggled to order was given the opportunity to take a separate eye test and try re-ordering their burger. The food truck pop-up ran over 10 days and the campaign resulted in 5,000 people having eye tests during this period alone. It was a clever and unique way to raise awareness of something we all take for granted.
Watch the video here to see how people got on.
Baywatch Slow Motion Marathon
For those of you old enough to remember Baywatch on TV, the iconic slow-motion beach run in the opening credits is the stuff of legend.
To celebrate the release of the new Baywatch film featuring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Zac Efron, cast members plus thousands of members of the public recreated the show’s original opening sequence, by taking part in a ‘gruelling’ 0.5km SloMo Marathon to the TV show’s original theme tune, I’m Always Here. An ad on the film’s Facebook page challenged fans to ‘come down and put your body, heart and mind to the test.
The event took place in downtown LA, and entrants were judged on their style, hairdo and outfit, with the victor winning a trip to the film’s Miami premiere.
This was a genius PR stunt that not only introduced a new generation of fans to Baywatch, but got the film tons of publicity in the press. Check out the video here to see how it turned out.