PR stunts can be fun to create. They can also be effective branding and marketing initiatives. But they can also flop … hard.
One recent campaign saw busloads of ‘protesters’ picketing outside Sydney’s CBD Apple store, shouting and bearing signs saying: “Wake Up”.
If you read the marketing trade press you might believe this was a successful stunt. But as one reader justly pointed out, because a campaign leads to discussion within the marketing industry does not mean it has led to the same level of conversation with the main target audience – the consumer.
The reason I sit on team ‘flop’ for the ‘Wake up’ campaign is this: the key message of the stunt is not clear … even weeks after it was launched and the brand behind the stunt – BlackBerry® – was revealed, I still can’t tell you the point of the campaign.
On top of the tenuous brand link, there is also the fact that blackberry enlisted the support of the popular technology reviewer and video blogger ‘Blunty’, who filmed the stunt as though he had caught the whole thing by chance. Every business wants advocates. And independent bloggers are highly valued as such. However, if you have asked for a blogger to support your business or talk about your product or campaign, particularly if you have paid them to do so, their ‘independence’ comes a bit unstuck. The recent Kangaroo Island ‘Let yourself go’ campaign, in which B-list celebs were paid by the South Australian Tourism Commission $750 to tweet positively about the island, is another case in point.
If you are not wholly transparent about all parties involved, you (and the advocate) risk losing the trust of your target audience. For more discussion of the ‘Wake-up’ campaign and the original video blog, click here.
And check out If you only read 3 things for a campaign that we rate as a ‘win’.