Smoking Gun PR shots Clever Campaign

Smoking Gun has just launched (November 2012) a smoking hot integrated campaign for the Kennel Club. 

The core elements are the competition ‘Crufts Factor’, which aims to find Britain’s most talented dog and is supported by Britain’s Got Talent Winner and Young Kennel Club member Ashleigh Butler, and the Discover Dogs event.

Dog owners who think their pooch has the Crufts Factor, can upload a video of their star through a Facebook app. The audience will have the chance to vote and elect three finalists. The three lucky doggies, together with a wildcard entry, will then show their talent at the event in Earl’s Court. The final winner will finally perform on the global stage at Crufts in March 2013.

MY OPINION

I might be slightly biased because of my love for dogs (my favourite pet), but I think this campaign will be extremely successful. We could say that there is a celebrity endorsement element in this campaign, which will definitely help its success. However, I think that the competition and the extremely shareable UGC will ultimately be its X (= winning) factor.

What do you think? Am I too biased?

** Apologies for the rare updates - I am working 9-5 and have no access to the Internet at home, which makes things complicated. It will all go back to normal in a few weeks.

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 :)

Chick-Fil-A and a BIG PR Disaster

What is worse than getting your reputation ruined? Trying to restore it by creating a fake Facebook account, of course!

Chick-fil-A is an American fast food chain. A few weeks ago (July 2012) the company's reputation was affected by CEO Dan Cathy's anti-gay marriage allegations. Just a few days later, Chick-fil-A declared it withdrew kid's meal toys produced by the Jim Hendson Company, as these were defective. 

The outbreak started when a Facebook user publicly invited the company to avoid pretense of coincidence. At this point, a new user called Abby Farle advocated Chick-fil-A claiming to know for certain that the toy manufacturer had ended the contract much earlier than the CEO's anti-gay marriage stance became public.

(taken from here)

It was then discovered that Abby Farle became a Facebook user just hours before the discussion started and that images of a girl who looked exactly the same as her were available on Shutterstock. What a coincidence, huh?

The company denied its involvement in the Facebook discussion and invited its fans to spread this version of the story online. 55,000 people liked the post; however the mayors of Boston and Chicago have declared they wish to deny the chain licence to open new shops in their cities. 

MY COMMENT

How many coincidences! 

I think this is a typical example of a 'social media suicide'. Denial is an approach to crisis and issue management that I do not like, at all. I think that it is the worst response to a crisis in a highly connected world like the one we live in now. People talk, bloggers have a great influence, and common Facebook users can become revolutionists. Lying is not affordable anymore and companies should just accept it. Stakeholders prefer an organisation that admits its faults, apologises, and learn from its mistakes. I think denial is the worst move Chick-fil-A could have made. And the fake Facebook user is simply a no-no in PR! In this case, restoring the reputation would have been challenging because of the homophobic allegations alone. However, now the task will be even tougher, as it will be difficult to regain the trust of the publics and customers.

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.

Reverse Riots

After the London riots last year, 14 to 25 year-olds have become the age group holding the worst reputation in the UK. This is why vInspired, a youth volunteer charity, launched the Reverse Riots campaign.

Reverse Riots is a 'Do something campaign' and encourages young people to show the society that they contribute positively to society on social networking sites. The campaign uses celebrity endorsement, including Paloma Faith and Plan B. Audience participation is also a big part of the campaign. Youngsters from all over the UK are invited to take a picture of themselves holding a piece of paper in which they state how they positively contribute to their community, spread it online and use the hashtag #ReverseRiots on Twitter. 

Some lucky participants will have the chance to win a number of prizes or replace the Twitter profile picture of a celebrity on the London riots anniversary. 

MY OPINION

I think this social media campaign is very smart and I really like the audience participation factor. It seems like it will generate the media interest necessary to make it noticeable to traditional media and become mainstream news. 

Images from here.

#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.

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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.