Sleep tight with Travelodge

Today I want to talk about a campaign that is very clever and that has inspired me in the past when working on campaigns for my MA. I'm talking about the 'Sleep tight' campaign that Grayling did for Travelodge. 

Image taken from here

In 2010 Travelodge faced a more competitive environment in the hospitality sector and therefore needed to stand out through differentiation and to generate brand recognition. Grayling very cleverly thought that positioning Travelodge as 'sleep specialists' would guarantee newsworthiness. And they were right! Lack of sleep is something we discuss very often with family, colleagues, and friends. Moreover, lack of sleep and its consequences are often mentioned in newspapers and magazines. 

Grayling established a conversation with the public by collecting a 'sleep census'. Once the issue of the lack of sleep was made known to the audience, Traveldoge was suggested as the solution to the problem. The whole campaign aimed to promote Traveldoge as retailer of sleep; a 'Sleep Manifesto' was even created. 

Since the huge success of the first campaign, the concept has been expanded and developed further in the last two years, it has been used in other campaigns by Travelodge.

MY OPINION

I believe this campaign is simply brilliant. What Grayling did was exploiting an already newsworthy item, in order to suggest that the client was the solution to it. This is a great technique to make a company stand out. I feel like I have learnt a lot from this case study. If we can relate a client to something that is newsworthy per se and we can cleverly and creatively exploit it, half of the job for the media coverage is basically done. The news releases almost sell themselves, the online conversations are more or less guaranteed, and the TA's interest is assured. I think this technique is one of the most effective PR strategies - at least of my knowledge :) .

What do you think? I'd love to hear some of your thought about this PR technique :)

Wish You Were At Topshop

Last year (June 2011) Topshop launched its digital campaign for the summer. 

The Wish You Were At Topshop campaign is rather interesting because Topshop was the first in its industry to use Instagram.

THE CAMPAIGN

Client: Topshop

Agency: FreshNetworks

The campaign was mainly centred on the Instagram application for Ipad 2 and it linked experimental marketing with PR. 

Shoppers in the high street Topshops of London, Dublin, Liverpool, and Manchester had the chance to receive a free styling and make-up session. After getting all 'dolled-up', the shoppers were offered the opportunity to create a digital postcard with the Instagram application for Ipad2. Participants were then able to take the postcard home with them or upload it on their Facebook wall. A copy of the postcard also appeared on the Topshop gallery on the brand's website.

MY OPINION

I think this campaign was pretty smart. Nothing new in the experimental concept: we've seen free make-up sessions in Harrods, Selfridges, and other clothing shops before. However, the idea of linking this with the Instagram application was very clever (most of all at a time when Instagram was experiencing its boom). I believe audience participation is key to successful PR and digital campaigns. Moreover, I think experimental marketing can be very effective. Well done FreshNetworks.

Guerrilla Marketing Inspiration

I know guerrilla marketing is not PR (strictly speaking), but in a world where integrated campaigns are more than needed, I think it is all right to get some inspiration from some BRILLIANT ideas like these...

Images taken from here, here, here, and here.

Want to know more? Go here ('Top 5 excellent ways to increase sales with guerrilla marketing').

#McFail - Beware of the Hashtag

From a brilliant example of PR to... a flop. Today I want to talk about the famous McFail.

(taken from here)

WHAT HAPPENED?

A few months ago (January 2012) the McDonald's started a 'hashtag campaign' on Twitter with the aim of generating some publicity and quality User Generated Content (UGC). They launched #McDStories and #MeetTheFarmers as promoted tweets.

It all started off pretty well with the McDonald's official account telling stories about the production of the burgers and cheese process... But soon enough Twitter users hijacked the hashtag and started tweeting disgusting stories and comments about past experiences at McDonald's.

                                                                 (taken from here)

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Animal rights groups took the opportunity to share horrific images of McDonald's food.

The campaign lasted less than 2 hours. Rick Wion, social media director, had to call it off straight away.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

The social media team probably got stuck on the 'big idea', deciding to ignore the risks that it involved. The association between McDonald's and the word 'stories' was a dangerous one, and I refuse to believe that no one in the team raised their voice to question the campaign before the launch. With such a big name and a long history of complaints though, it was naive for the company to hope that it all would have worked out fine.

LESSON TO LEARN

UGC cannot be controlled on micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter. There is no chance for the companies to moderate the content and tone of what people think and publish. If you are really eager to launch a campaign that involves UGC, try to do it in a more controlled environment such as Facebook. There you can set your own rules before launching the campaign and then have the right to delete deleterious comments. Also, we must remember that the best UGC is usually spontaneous. If we try to force the public to write/talk about us, it can end very badly.

Cheddarvision

I want to start this collection of reviews with one of my favourite PR campaigns: Cheddarvision, by Bray Leino.

Dom Lane, Creative Director at Bray Leino, delivered a lecture at Bournemouth University in which I was lucky enough to sit in this year. He told us all about the campaign, so I'm happy to share the details I know.

THE ISSUE:

In the end of 2006, West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers were facing economic issues and needed a sales boost. The budget was small, but the situation severe. They decided to hire a PR consultancy to try to solve the issue.

THE SOLUTION:

With such a small budget (in the region of 5/10k if I remember correctly), Bray Leino needed to generate a simple original idea that could be executed at a low cost. 

Dom told he was sitting in a meeting with a client that produced wine and he suddenly had the idea of filming the growth of grapes and the process of making wine. Unfortunately the meeting's purpose was that of dismissing the agency for budgeting reasons. Right after the meeting, West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers called him to check how things were evolving with their account. He realised that the idea he had for the ex client could be applied to their key product - cheese.

Bray Leino set up a webcam in West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers' farm to film the maturing of the Cheddar. A micro site was launched to stream the video online. It quickly got viral. By the end of march 2007, the website hit over half a million visits. 


The cheese round got so famous that it was 'baptised' Wedginald. During the broadcast, Wedginal went to Glastonbury festival, received a Valentine's Day card, wore a red nose, opened a Facebook and Twitter account, and became a good-luck charm at the Rugby World Cup.

You can see a time-lapse of the famous cheese maturing from month 0 to 12 here. 

When Wedginald finally matured, it was auctioned off for Children in Need and sent to its buyer all the way to Australia, first class.

The success of the campaign was huge; in fact Bray Leino won the CIPR Pride Awards 2007. 


MY OPINION:


I believe this is a clear example of a creative campaign that has the 'viral factor' and that 'has legs'; that's why it worked. I guess we all dream of conceiving something that has the potential to get viral. However, we must never forget that viral is an effect. We can only produce intended viral material, spread it as much as we can and hope it will become viral... Let the magic happen. If it is good enough, the magic will happen.