Top 10 PR and marketing stunts and campaigns of April 2015
By Rich Leigh on Friday, May 1, 2015
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That aside, here, in reverse order (and based solely on the number of unique views each post received), are the top ten PR and marketing campaigns throughout April 2015:
10. World’s first drinkable billboard created to promote Coke Zero
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTaP63EGkNA
Coca-Cola debuted the first-ever drinkable billboard at a NCAA college basketball game in Indianapolis. The brand thinking behind it was, apparently, that so few people *actually* know what Coke Zero tastes like, they have to give 11.5 tons of the stuff away for free.
9. Volkswagen create vending machine that uses old batteries as payment
Car manufacturer Volkswagen created a vending machine that allowed consumers to trade their old batteries for items that were obtainable at local community shops such as stress balls, bottles of water and t-shirts.
8. McDonald’s give 24 gifts of joy for 24 cities in 24 hours
Now, there’s SO MUCH to steal in this, PR Land, just give it a year or so. Essentially, McDonald’s and partner agencies conceived 24 separate stunts, executed in a 24 hour period in as many cities. Sickeningly slick.
7. Heineken makes dreams come true
Heineken spoke to thousands of members of public about their personal dreams and then, for three sets of people, made them a reality. Not much to tie it back to the brand besides the ‘beach bar’ dream, but still… CONTENT.
6. There’s a billboard at Old Truman Brewery today which dispenses FREE beer – by Inderdeep Gill
Carlsberg trumped Coca-Cola literally a week or two after its drinkable billboard US campaign with this, a BEER dispensing UK version, which, really, was always going to win out.
5. Kleenex and Madame Tussaud’s mop up as Zayn departs – by MHP Brand’s Mark Perkins
A ’tissue attendant’ was placed next to the waxwork statue of ex-One Direction band member Zayn Malik at Madam Tussaud’s, in a reactive stunt set up to ‘mop up the tears as overcome fans bid their farewells’.
4. Hyundai help daughter of ISS astronaut create message visible from space
A nice campaign from car manufacturer Hyundai, in which an astronaut working on the International Space Station was able to see a message from his daughter Stephanie from space, written on a desert by 11 Hyundai Genesis cars. 53m views and counting.
3. Burger King paying for wedding of Mr Burger and Miss King in great reactive PR stunt
Burger King is paying for the whole wedding of engaged couple Joel Burger and Ashley King, two college sweethearts from New Berlin, Illinois, in one of the best reactive PR efforts of the year, for me.
2. Dove ‘Choose Beautiful’ Campaign Encourages Women To Be Anything But Average – by Houston PR’s Inderdeep Gill
Despite being dubbed ‘faux-inspirational, insincere and irrelevant’ by one commentator, this campaign by beauty brand Dove has proved popular. In short, women were made to choose to walk through one of two doors – one with ‘beautiful’ and the other with ‘average’ written across the top. What happened next MIGHT surprise you*.
*I’m joking, obvs.
1. Real money frozen into shape of fish in Birds Eye billboard stunt – by Rich Leigh & Company’s Craig Knowles
Birds Eye created a giant frozen billboard in London with coins and notes inside to promote its iFreeze iSave campaign, which encourages consumers to use their freezers and reduce their food waste. Hidden inside the ice block was £700 worth of cash in coins and notes – which the average family wastes on food each year, apparently.
As the ice block melted, passers-by were able to collect the money from below the billboard.
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