PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

Friday is here, which calls for only one thing – our good, bad and viral campaigns of the week! This week includes hand drawn tweets to show how well a drinks brand engages with its consumer, a green cup that brewed up a storm and a skin brand who launched a product via social media.

Innocent Drinks Handmade Tweets

Last week, Innocent Drinks decided that its social media platform, Twitter, needed a little shaking up. The healthy drink brand thought for one day it would be nice to be a little more innovative and create “#handmadetweets”.

Innocent Drinks has always been good at social media and engaging with its audience. So it’s no surprise that they’ve come up with a cute Twitter campaign creating handmade tweets instead of typed tweets, inviting their followers to request what they create.

The brand uploaded a “handwritten” image that said:

Using the hashtag #handmadetweets, followers could request anything they like and Innocent Drinks would reply with a handwritten or drawn response.

After tweeting this on their social media account, there were floods of bizarre and funny requests.

One user asked for Innocent Drinks to create a wizard creating the smoothies in a cauldron.

Another asked for a hot cross bun and a mince pie fighting over who loved Innocent Drinks more.

This campaign was only live for one day, but it had great engagement on Twitter with hundreds of people who wanted to have their own handmade tweet.  This simple campaign further builds the Innocent Drinks brand as a quirky, cute, friendly company and not just a money making mega-corporation owned by Coca Cola.

More handmade tweets can be viewed here: https://twitter.com/i/moments/799580301601153024

More than Just Skin Deep

In a market more crowded than Istanbul’s Grand Bazar, it can seem an insurmountable challenge to get your brand seen and heard. The anti-ageing market is definitely one of these – the secret of youthful looking skin has been pedalled for generations with a new product launched each week claiming to reconnect you with your more youthful self.

GoodSkin Labs, an anti-aging beauty product line part of Estée Lauder’s BeautyBank division of products, launched back in 2007 and needed to do things differently to make sure they were noticed.

PRs, consumers and journalists all rate social media and blogs as an equal to, or in some cases more powerful than, the more traditional magazines and newspapers in today’s media mix. This communication channel hasn’t always been as highly regarded however and this was the case back in 2007 when GoodSkin Labs was launching its range.

How do you stand out from the crowd? How do you get your message heard amongst so many?

Be brave – do something that no one else is doing! And that’s exactly what GoodSkin Labs did along with its PR Agency, Allison & Partners.

GoodSkin had positioned itself as the ideal product for on-the-go women who may be consuming media in a non-traditional way. Andra Mielnicki, Beauty-Bank executive director of global communications, wanted to minimize the brand’s reliance on traditional adverts and wanted women to spread the word by using their own social networks and videos.

Allison & Partners worked with GoodSkin to find 10 ‘everyday’ women each month to send product to and in turn, the ladies would talk about the product through social media. “The objective was to reach women who use the product who are also active on social media”, explains Mielnicki.

A separate landing website page was built where the women shared personal videos; this page was integrated with the brand’s Facebook page and commercial website. Each month, 10 women were given product to review; they could create a video for the landing page and talk about it on the brand’s Facebook page, as well as on their own social channels.

The brand’s Facebook page grew by more than 45% after the campaign launched and more than 8,000 people liked the page. User interaction on Facebook is up 324%. The campaign was covered in 237-plus outlets and seen by 30 million-plus readers.

Starbucks’ Green Cup Causes Controversy

With the Christmas holidays just around the corner (it’s so close we can smell the mulled wine), expectations for coffee shops to bring out their festive flavours and Christmas cups is nigh. However in the US, Starbucks are mixing things up a little.

Earlier in November, the well-known coffee shop surprised many by bringing out a ‘green’ cup.

The coffee giant that is Starbucks, released a new cup to celebrate community and send a message of unity throughout the US “during a divisive time in our country”, Schultz (CEO) said in a prepared statement. “Starbucks wanted to create a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values and the need to be good to each other,” he said. “The green cup and the design represent the connections Starbucks has as a community with its partners (employees) and customers.”

The new cups have a mosaic of more than a hundred people drawn in one continuous stroke, including a coffee farmer, a family, a barista and friends embracing. This was created by a talented individual, Shogo Ota, a Japanese artist who has been living in the US since moving there for college almost 14 years ago.

Some of the faces you’ll find on there include his family and the multitude of people he’s met in Idaho and Seattle, where he’s now based. As Ota says, “People should feel everybody is equal and happy together; that sounds peaceful to me.”

Despite how heart-warming this is, the release sparked uproar among US coffee fans, who took it to social media to complain.

One user tweeted: “My coffee should not (and does not) come with political brainwashing.”

Starbucks explained the green cup was not actually launched for Christmas but was available for a limited time at Starbucks stores in the United States. Since then, Starbucks launched its official festive red cups on 10^th November.

From a PR standpoint, mission accomplished. And now Starbucks has an opportunity to reach out to some of these people who defended the cup to find out what drives brand loyalty and how to bolster the company’s reputation.

This controversial news story has been picked up in the UK by The Independent, The Daily Record, The Daily Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, etc.

PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

Friday is here, which calls for only one thing – our good, bad and viral campaigns of the week! This week includes a travel company trying to excite Australians to go on holiday, passing an exam to get your hands on an exclusive bottle of liqueur and a bed manufacturer ensuring people have a good night’s sleep.

Travel Website uses Playing Cards to get Aussies Outside of Oz

I’d like to think that I can speak for all Brits when I say; we all love a hot holiday aboard! Could this be down to the fact that we live in a country that wears shorts and has BBQs anytime a ray of sunshine comes through the rain clouds?

On the other hand, I can see why Australians would be happy to go on holiday within their own country. What’s not to love? They have sun virtually all year round and if it does rain, this tends to burn off quite quickly and the sun soaks up the evidence.

We know that Australians like to think of themselves as laid back, spontaneous and all-round easy going. But it is a different story when it comes to holidays. A new Lastminute.com.au survey revealed that Aussies are terrified of doing anything without weeks of planning. On the back of this research, travel website Lastminute.com.au, has launched ‘Cards of Spontaneity’, a new game aimed at helping Australians let loose and embrace leaving things until the last minute. Players get to choose a card from three decks to create their dream holiday – which could range from them learning to salsa dance in Sicily with a stranger they met online to pole dancing at Central Park in New York with their best friend.

Aussies can either play the game online via the Lastminute Facebook page or they can pick up a set of cards through radio partner, NOVA. Once they have their chosen set of cards, they simply post these on Facebook to be in with a chance of winning a $1,000 travel experience!

Results from this campaign have been slow so far with only 4,700 views in the space of week and a half on Facebook. This campaign has however been picked up by The Daily Mail and online platforms such as Mumbrella and Australian radio station NOVA.

Why not have a go and play it here for yourself and book your next spontaneous holiday? Simply hit pause on the video and see what holiday it generates for you!

Coffee-mad Customers Forced to Take

The world’s rarest coffee liqueur has gone on sale – but if you want to buy one of only six bottles available, you’ll have to pass an exam first. Australian cold-press coffee liqueur Mr Black has used the world’s rarest and most expensive Panama Geisa coffee to make its £115 Panana Geisha edition of its liqueur.

Only six bottles have been made – which is why the company has decided to vet customers by making them sit an examination to test them on their coffee knowledge. Passing the exam is no easy feat. Only the most clued-up coffee aficionados will be able to get all of them right and buy one of the exclusive bottles.

In partnership with Caffeine magazine, the exam paper was set by industry experts and features eight multiple choice and essay-style questions on the origin and grading of specialty coffee, as well as the taste and the science behind the brewing process. Questions include where the Geisha genus of coffee first originated, the definition of ‘first crack,’ and the top three organic acids found in freshly brewed Arabica coffee.

Tom Baker, director of Mr Black, said he decided to set an exam because he was worried that UK coffee fans would otherwise miss out on trying the rare liqueur.

What makes the coffee liqueur so rare is the low supplies of Panana Geisha crops in the world.

The raw version of the coffee is currently being sold for about $250 a kilogram – that’s compared to a wholesale bag of standard coffee, which would usually sell for between $20 and $25.

Scott Bentley, founder of Caffeine magazine said: ‘It really is a once-in-a-lifetime product, using the prized Camilina Geisha from Auromar Estate – which was this year awarded the Best Natural Panama Geisha in the world.’

If you want to enter, fill out the exam paper on p18 in Caffeine magazine’s December edition or you can apply online. This PR campaign is a brilliant way to boost the profile of an Australian brand that isn’t that well-known within the UK market whilst tapping into the nation’s love of coffee. The campaign has been covered by The Daily Mail and various PR business websites.

Sweet Dreams are Made of These

Very often in the world of PR it’s necessary to make yourself newsworthy – you can’t always rely on the product alone. We get our clients in the press by either creating some new news or pegging the client or the product onto a topical angle.

We like this campaign as it reflects how we jump on the back of topical angles and demonstrates how effective it can be. Bed manufacturer, Dreams, used National Stop Snoring Week to raise awareness of the brand by offering free ear plugs to anyone during National Stop Snoring Week. There was no purchase necessary – customers were invited to go in to store to claim. Dreams supported this campaign with an advertising campaign, its own blog and an infographic.

The infographic looked at the different types of snorers and how to stop them – and that’s where the beauty of this campaign lies – everyone has encountered a snorer at some point.

As the campaign included a ‘giveaway’, it gained traction on sites such as Wow! Free Stuff and Couponshop vastly increasing its exposure and reach.

All in all, a successful campaign – not a snore fest at all. It seems the creatives behind it got out of the right side of the bed that day.

PR Campaign of the Week

Friday is here, which calls for only one thing – our good, bad and viral campaigns of the week! This week includes a confectionery company celebrating its 70^th anniversary with a rather unusual product, a well-known hair growth company on tour, tea teaming up with China’s well known designers and a rather adorable cat video to help the public’s mental health.

An Unlikely Pairing…

Parma Violets flavoured cheese? Sounds bonkers doesn’t it? However, this is exactly what one PR agency did to create a rather unique and successful PR campaign.

Swizzels is a family owned confectionery company manufacturing iconic brands such as Love Hearts, Refreshers, Double Lollies, Drumsticks and of course Parma Violets. RMS PR had worked with Swizzles for many years creating an array of award-winning campaigns to promote their various products.

This time, the agency faced their biggest challenge yet: The confectionery company gave the agency this very simple and direct brief: “It’s the 70th anniversary of Parma Violets.  Get us lots of media coverage.”

Many ideas were thrown around such as a character called Violet Parma, an online game and a giant Parma Violet but it was a throwaway suggestion that made the cut. They decided to make a Parma Violets cheese – perhaps as an April Fool’s Day stunt or simply for a photo shoot to get people talking. RMS PR decided to take it one step further and actually make the cheese itself, with help from the Cheshire Cheese Company, the purple cheese was created and ready to launch to the unsuspecting world.

There are many Parma Violet haters out there and they definitely divided opinion among consumers – this is how the agency knew this campaign would be newsworthy and make the headlines.

As well as being featured on numerous BBC channels, the Parma Violets Cheese gained coverage in the Metro, The Sun, Sainsbury’s Magazine, Manchester Evening News and Shortlist. The cheese also generated incredible reactions on social media #parmavioletscheese.

Parma Violets is now firmly front-of-mind with consumers nationwide which was the aim of the whole campaign.  As for the cheese itself, apart from being shortlisted for four international cheese awards, the short run of cheeses made for the campaign quickly sold out and the initial production run was tripled.  In fact, such has been the demand generated as a direct result of the publicity campaign that Parma Violets Cheese has now gone into full production!

Who would have thought combining Parma Violets with cheese would take off so well?! We’re not sure if we would like to try this cheese for ourselves, but congratulations to RMS PR for such a successful PR campaign!

http://swizzels-matlow.com/parmavioletscheese/

 

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Carefully thought out PR campaigns can provide a tangible return on investment and can be used as a standalone campaign – this is one of those examples.

Hair growth supplement company, Viviscal, invested $64,000 USD into a PR Campaign to raise awareness of women’s hair thinning and hair loss.

Although Viviscal had been available to the US consumer for nearly ten years and was proven to be effective, the product hadn’t taken off as expected. The company felt that one of the main reasons was due to a general lack of awareness of the problem and therefore, the resolution. Viviscal’s goal was to break the silence and break the taboo and get women talking about thinning hair issues. This campaign had several different PR elements which included:

Media Tour – Viviscal sourced brand ambassadors from the health and beauty world that women would trust and sent them on a media tour.

Survey – Viviscal conducted a survey on Facebook of 1,962 women, the results of this survey were then used in the infographic.

Consumer Trial – Viviscal invited consumers to trial the product and feedback their results including photographs and testimonials which were shared online.

Social Media – Viviscal ran a competition on its social media platforms inviting followers to share their personal hair loss stories. Those who submitted their stories were automatically entered into a competition to win a trip to New York.

Infographic – The infographic included facts such as, ‘66% of women think about hair loss once a day or more’ and ‘36% of women don’t let their partners touch their hair.’

These assets came together to provide a well-rounded campaign that was directly relatable to an increase in sales for the company. The month that the media tour took place, sales increased by a whopping 28%. The following week, sales jumped 42% above the average prior to the campaign and maintained a 25% increase throughout that month.

VP of PR and marketing for Viviscal, Kristie Kederis, says the product has a cult following among hair and beauty professionals, models and celebrities.

“Women’s hair loss has long been a taboo subject,” Kederis explains. “We wanted to break that stigma, let women know they’re not alone…and provide information about solutions – one of which is Viviscal.”

 

Lipton Tea Teams Up with Chinese Designers at Shanghai Fashion Week

In the West, Lipton tea is known as grandma’s go-to iced tea brand. But in October, the well-known tea brand took a dip into China’s hip crowd.

With growing competition from foreign tea suppliers such as Teavana and Twinings, Lipton is dipping into China’s tea craze with the help of independent Chinese designers at Shanghai’s Fashion Week.

Megan Zhu (Unilever China Associate Brand Director) says its key market is young consumers who care about lifestyle, so Lipton teamed up with several high-profile Chinese designers who presented at Shanghai’s Fashion week to create limited-edition gift boxes. They each featured boxes of tea bags alongside a fashion accessory exclusively designed by the emerging fashion designers, to pair with their fruity teas. Angel Chen, designed peach and mango enamel pins to go alongside the peach and mango black tea. Yirantian, who had been a part of Vogue Italy’s young talents program, created a black velvet choker to go along with red berry black tea. Finally designer Xiaolu Liu, who debuted her Spring/Summer 2017 collection at Milan Fashion Week, created a lemon coaster to pair with a lemon black tea.

The three gift boxes were on display at Lipton’s pop-up shop at the event to entice the younger generation. Those who purchased all three boxes automatically got entered into a raffle with a chance to win a teabag-inspired handbag designed by Angel Chen.

Not only did this event promote Lipton as brand, but it took a daring dip into the the world of the younger generation to show how popular their fruit tea blends are. Teaming up with inspirational designers who provided unique fashion pieces for the gift boxes made the event all the more successful and appealing to the market Lipton were targeting.

This campaign was covered by the Jing Daily in China, who mentioned that, “The pairing may seem strange, but brands Lipton are in tune with just how much China’s millennials love lifestyle experiences.”

 

Blue Cross Animal Charity Creates Meditation Video

The Blue Cross Animal Charity teamed up with The Mindfulness Project to create a short meditation video to help the general public get over the worries and anxieties of modern day life. As people struggled to deal with life post-Trump election, the fun video (aptly named ‘Karma Kitties’) was picked up and promoted by both Stylist online and the Metro. The video instructs the viewer through a range of simple meditation techniques and then ends with footage of cute kittens playing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eorAXbKQPi4

It has been proven that watching videos of animals instantly improves someone’s mood so this clever PR campaign harnesses that concept, promotes the animal charity and ties in to a topical subject all in one go. Not only did the video support the charity, but it gave people the opportunity for the cats in the film to be adopted.

Since the video went live, all of the cats in the video have been adopted which adds another heartfelt element to this campaign. The video has been watched over 90,000 times which is a great result.

 

 

PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

Friday is here, which calls for only one thing – our good, bad and viral campaigns of the week! This week includes a campaign using social media to find the world’s first ever ‘resorter’, an X Factor judge supporting those with intellectual disabilities, a national newspaper helping vulnerable children across the globe and a clothing range raising awareness for mental illness.

No room at the Inn

We all know how competitive the hotel trade is and we liked how this hotel in New Hampshire had thought outside the box when it came to the all-important job of getting bookings.

The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel worked with an agency to create a campaign using social media to drive bookings for the website. The campaign was called the ‘InnBedded Resorter’ and used social media to find the world’s first-ever ‘Resorter’ — someone who would live at the hotel for July and August. The ‘Resorter’ would use social channels to share all of their experiences at the huge 8,000 acre resort and unsurprisingly entries poured in from all over the world. The four star resort managed to whittle it down to a few finalists and then used online voting to pick the winner.

The first ‘Resorter’ was 23-year-old Martin Earley, who spent two months at the resort over the summer. Earley blogged and posted daily social media updates, photos and videos about all The Balsams had to offer. The campaign was a hit, and the hotel saw a 20% increase in bookings in August.

Following the success of the summer campaign, the resort rolled out the same competition for the winter months. Canadian social media travel superstars Alex & Luke were the lucky winners and moved into the luxurious resort over the winter. The couple used their own website, along with the resort’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other social media platforms to continually update followers on their adventures at the resort while they were there.

The winter campaign was even more successful than the summer ‘Resorter’ with the opening week of Winter 2010/2011 almost entirely sold out and as a result was the busiest holiday weekend for the hotel in years.

We liked this campaign as it was all kept in-house, it didn’t go far and wide or reach press, however it didn’t need to. The social media competition not only increased followers on social platforms but more importantly was 100% effective in driving all important sales and getting the hotel booked up.

Nicole Scherzinger announced as Global Ambassador for the Special Olympics helps support #PlayUnified

Nicole Scherzinger has recently been announced as a campaigner for disabled rights and a Special Olympics global ambassador. In The Sun, she discusses how happy she is to support such a huge organisation so close to her heart. She credits her auntie Keziah, who has Down’s Syndrome, for inspiring her to fight for better opportunities for those with ID (intellectual disabilities).

“People with learning disabilities have huge resources, capabilities and skill. Different maybe, but certainly not less.” Scherzinger supports the organisations most recent and popular campaign – #PlayUnified.

This campaign originally began in the US and quickly became world famous. #PlayUnified encourages young people with and without ID to work and play together. The campaign has been supported with activity that the public can use and gain access to via their website. These resources can be found here and include a social activation kit (sharing the Unified Emoji and hashtags across social media platforms and taking Unified Selfies). This kit encourages people to take a selfie with someone they don’t know, sharing this on social media using the Unified Emoji and hashtags and instructions on how to play StreetBall – football games that get the general public and Special Olympics athletes playing together.

Special Olympic groups and Unified Sports teams have been created across the globe for everyone to volunteer, become an athlete, work as a coach or simply enjoy playing with others. These areas include Africa, Asia Pacific, East Asia, Europe, North America and Middle East North Africa. These groups help support thousands of people every year to come and play sports together.

The campaign has gone down a storm in the US and the rest of the world is gradually becoming more receptive to those with ID. The campaign continues to get lots of discussion on social media with the Special Olympics Twitter page having over 87,000 followers and their Facebook page, over 764,000 likes! As a whole this campaign aims to unify all children, whether they have a disability or not.

This campaign has been covered in The Sun, Fox News and BBC Sport in the UK.

Knit a Kid a Blanket

A national newspaper is helping vulnerable children around the world that desperately need our help. Working with UK based charity knitting club Loving Hands, The Sun on Sunday has set up ‘Knit a Kid a Blanket’ campaign urging their readers to knit a warm and  comforting blanket to help save the lives of orphans who are struggling through unimaginably difficult winters in some of the poorest countries.

The blankets could also be used to brighten up Christmas for one of the thousands of needy kids much closer to home, giving them a lovingly home-made gift to open.

The blankets made will provide aid for vulnerable children in some of the poorest countries in Europe, including Moldova, Ukraine, Romania and Hungary as well as for child refugees and orphans in war-torn Syria. These donations of blankets are vital for the survival of thousands of children across the world.

As well as Loving Hands, the Sun has also teamed up with Operation Orphan, co-founder Brad Moore said: “A blanket to children in cold climates can ­literally be a lifesaver to protect them in the harshest months.

“It really is a matter of life and death. A blanket to children in the UK can give them something of their own for the first time.

Many celebrities are supporting the cause and getting fully wrapped up in the Knit a Kid a Blanket campaign. X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne was especially moved by The Sun’s appeal to help orphans in war and disaster zones as well as vulnerable children in the UK.

She said: “To think of children being so cold that they need a blanket just to keep warm is heartbreaking. That’s why I support The Sun on Sunday’s campaign.”

Other famous faces supporting the campaign include Peter Andre, Karen Brady and Sun columnist Lorraine Kelly:  “Thanks so much to all our generous, kind-hearted readers who have already got knitting and supported the campaign.”

If you would like to help vulnerable children who so desperately need our help, send blankets to: Operation Orphan, The Sun on Sunday’s Knit A Kid A Blanket Appeal, 143 Attenborough Lane, Attenborough, Nottingham, NG9 6AA.

 Get knitting! It could help save a life.

The clothing range designed to raise awareness of mental illness

Having been diagnosed with schizophrenia aged 22, graphic designer Michelle Hammer wanted to do something to reduce the stigma around mental health issues. This led her fashion company Schizophrenic NYC to be born.

Featuring slogan tees and vest tops with lines such as the company’s tag line, “Don’t be paranoid, you look great” and “It’s not a delusion, you are incredible”, the young designer hopes that the range will raise awareness of mental illness and encourage people to speak up about this seldom-discussed topic.

One of the designs depicts the well-known Rorschach inkblot test, only in colour rather than the usual black – a move, Hammer says, that asks the viewer to see the splash from a different perspective. Michelle Hammer – who manages her schizophrenia with medication and counselling – says the idea was sparked after she saw a homeless man on the subway clearly struggling and wondered how much of a stretch it was to imagine herself in his position.

“I wanted to create something of my own that I could be proud of, and announce to everyone that I live with a mental illness.”

The products, which also include prints, badges, bracelets and mugs, are available online and at pop-up stalls in New York. Schizophrenic.NYC donates part of the profits to organisations helping the mentally ill homeless in New York, such as Fountain House, NYS Health Foundation, MHA-NYC, and NAMI.

This PR campaign raises awareness and money for a good cause, whilst also raising the profile of the fashion designer.

 

PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The end of the working week means that the Friday feeling is here and we have our round up of good, bad and viral campaigns. This week includes a powerful music video encouraging people with rare blood types to give blood, a political flavoured sandwich, a twisted Tinder prank and campaign to save tea breaks!

NHS Blood #Represent Campaign

NHS Blood and Transplant and MOBO have joined forces to help drive registration of black and Asian blood donors with a new campaign called #Represent.

NHS Blood and Transplant want to inspire the next generation of donors in a new and creative way and they have done this by creating a video with a powerful message. Written and performed by UK grime artist and 2016 MOBO Award nominee, Lady Leshurr, the video showcases leading UK celebrities including record breaking Olympian Nicola Adams MBE. Other celebrities include TV presenter and wheelchair basketball player, Ade Adepitan, MP, Chuka Umunna and MOBO’s own Founder and CEO Kanya King MBE.

This campaign is based on the insight that less than 3% of people who gave blood in the last 12 months came from black or Asian communities and that people from these communities are more likely to have rarer blood types. These rare blood types are essential in the treatment of patients with sickle cell disease and thalassaemia which mainly effect patients of black and Asian heritage respectively.

These patients who require regular transfusions need blood which is more closely matched to their own to get the best outcome; the best way to get this match is blood from a similar ethnic background. People of black and Asian heritage also have a higher incidence of conditions such as diabetes – which increases the chances of needing an organ transplant.

By partnering with the MOBO Awards and engaging with key role models and influencers, NHS Blood and Transplant aims to highlight the importance of blood donation and motivate more young people to book an appointment and help save lives.

This particular campaign has been covered online at NME.com and The Voice Online. Step up and #Represent.

The full video can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YUbquK_OaI

An Order of Donald Trump’s BS Please.

With a new flavour of president set to reside in The Whitehouse from next Tuesday, the world’s eyes are drawn to the final throes as the two candidates thrash it out.

Needless to say this American drama has commanded coverage in any title and website going, from political angles, to humour, their personal lives and now to food…

Cafes and restaurants worldwide are advertising the Trump sandwich on their sandwich boards with this description: “White bread, full of baloney, with Russian dressing and a small pickle”.

What we loved about this is how a vast number of small business owners have used their initiative with a dollop of humour mixed with a side of social media to make a quirky, topical and effective campaign. These sandwich boards have been shared far and wide on social undoubtedly increasing footfall to the individual venues and rewarding proprietors with an increase in sales.

The Trump sandwich phenomenon has arguably been more popular than the candidate himself with the spread on social as well as coverage on the big name national titles like The Telegraph reporting on the rise of the Trump sandwich.

Taking the Trump sandwich to the next level is Portland based advertising agency, Wieden + Kennedy. The brave agency has opened up a food truck serving free Donald Trump Baloney Sandwiches – otherwise known as Donald Trump BS – to passers-by.

Trump’s BS come in five exciting flavours including favourites “America-First Hero” and “Border-Security Hero”.

It’s not easy for a business to put its neck on the line and publicly announce its political allegiances and even more so when it’s anti-Trump in the USA, so hats off to these guys. As an agency they are proving themselves to be brave and creative with their own campaigns, which is surely the best advertisement of the work they can offer potential clients.

The Wieden + Kennedy stunt was a very effective PR campaign and achieved coverage in high circulation titles on both sides of the pond including The Daily Mail, The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

Let’s see what the sandwich boards will be advertising come Tuesday…

Ghoulish Tinder Prank Promotes New Season of The Walking Dead

New Zealand TV network TVNZ, created a number of zombie profiles on Tinder to celebrate the launch of TV series ‘The Walking Dead’. The zombie apocalypse series is one of the network’s  latest TV series acquisitions and to drum up some buzz they wanted to create a funny and engaging prank that targeted its core audience of 16-35 year old males.

The network created a number of Tinder profiles using head-shots of  female staff members. The photos used were attractive to lure unsuspecting men into interacting with the women on the dating site. Once a conversation was taking place between the man and the TVNZ employee, they gradually began to change the tone of conversation to make the girl into a zombie. They then suddenly changed the headshot from pretty and attractive to un-dead and ghoulish. The idea behind the prank was that the women had transformed into zombies to shock their unsuspecting admirer.

Most men found the prank funny and continued to interact with the zombie women after the big reveal. Some were initially confused, but soon clicked on once the final message from the woman revealed that they were promoting the new TV series. This campaign has been well-received online and on social media and you can check out the promotional video for the prank at the YouTube link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rQ9bFK6zM

Such a great way to target a specific demographic of TV viewers in a fun and engaging way.

Save Tradesmen Tea Breaks Campaign

There’s nothing more warming than a mid-morning tea break. How many of you stop for a mid-morning cuppa? How would you feel if your boss cut your tea break, claiming that it leads to wasted time?

Bosses at Ineos’ Grangemouth petrochemical plant in Scotland, owned by billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, are trying to axe the morning tea break for contractors at the site. They want to get rid of the 10am tea break for contract staff due to ‘high levels of unproductive time.’

One worker said, “Ratcliffe enjoys a life of luxury. I’m sure he gets ten minutes for a cup of tea in the morning.” Other tradesmen mention that it’s that time in the morning where they can grab a cuppa and wrap up warm – even more important at this time of year. Ineos’ bosses say the tea break is not being scrapped, but ‘rescheduled’ to the end of the shift. They say contractors will get an extra half-hour’s pay each day as compensation. From previous comments, tradesmen look forward to their morning break this ‘compensation’ may not be a welcome exchange.

Furious staff told The Daily Record that generations of workers have valued their break and it is feared the proposal could be copied by bosses around Britain.

Save Our Tea Break campaign was first covered by The Scottish Daily Record and has also been covered in The Daily Mail, Metro and The Daily Mirror.

Journalist of the Month

Faye Smith is a freelance Associate Editor and writer for Woman and Woman’s Own Special series. She has placed our client’s products within issues of Woman and Woman’s Own over the past year and has been amazing to work with. She has answered the infamous Little Bird PR questions to give us an insight into what makes her tick, inside and outside of work!

What are the five words that best describe you?

Weird, funny, cat-lover, daydreamer, kind.

What magazine do you love reading and why?

I have to read most magazines for work and I love seeing what’s in Woman and Woman’s Own each week as it will reflect what we do on the Specials. I’m pretty old school and still get excited about highlighting what to watch in the Christmas edition of the TV Times each year!

What is your favourite book?

I always get sucked into the big hits – Gone Girl, Girl On The Train, Before I Go To Sleep, even Harry Potter etc – then I get really angry when they get made into films and it’s different to what was in my imagination…

 Which song makes you dance?

Anything by SClub7… My musical tastes are cheesy for sure.

What has been your best career moment?

Every day brings moments of belly laughter and fun and I know I’m so lucky to have the job I have. I distinctly remember the moment I was offered a place onto my NCTJ course back in 2001. I knew it was a day that would change the course of my life and I was right. It was the start of something great.

What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

Run your own race. Ignore what everyone around you is doing as you’re all about to take different paths. I remember lots of my friends got settled with mortgages right out of university and I felt a bit panicked that I wasn’t keeping up (especially as my chosen career path involved working for free for a while!). Now I absolutely cherish the freedom I had to pursue the career I really wanted, without being tied down.

Where are you happiest?

Aberystwyth. I went to University there and it’s a magical place, has the most amazing sunsets, and the booze is dirt cheap!

Who would be your number one dinner guest and why (they can be past or present)?

Alf Stewart from Home and Away. He’d not only help out with the ‘tucker’, but the wise words of wisdom he’d have to offer would be priceless. Things might get awkward though, when I tell him my cat’s name is Roo, just like his daughter… then he’d probably get in his Ute and head back to the Bay quick-smart.

If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why?

Invisibility. And there’s no pretending I wouldn’t use it for evil.

If you had to ask us one question what would it be?

What do you really want to see on a buffet table?

Lots of wine, cheese and olives. Not rabbit-food-salad bowls.

PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The end of the working week means that the Friday feeling is here and of course our round up of good, bad and viral campaigns. This week includes an Instagram feature helping those with mental illnesses, some sweaty selfies, Britain’s smallest pub and the perfect cup of tea (again!).

Instagram Helping to Tackle Mental Illness

Social media can be a major contributor to mental illness. With many of us following people who live very wealthy and affluent lifestyles; people strive for the impossible which can bring some of us down.

This is why social media app, Instagram, has started working with the National Eating Disorders Association and the National Suicide Prevention Helpline to help tackle the issue of mental health.

Now if you log on to Instagram and see someone post about self-harm, you can anonymously report it. The app will send the user a message saying: “Someone saw one of your posts and thinks you might be going through a difficult time. If you need support, we’d like to help.”

Instagram’s latest feature will then give a variety of options for the individual to go through – such as talking to someone you trust via the app, getting tips and support or contacting a local helpline, all of which are tailored using language suggested to Instagram by the variety of mental health groups it sought advice from.

The app has almost 500 million monthly users. According to mental health charity MIND, in the UK one in four people will experience a mental health problem each year.

Considering the fact Instagram is flooded with images representing impossible standards of beauty and five-star lifestyles, there is ample fuel for people to find themselves questioning their own worth when scrolling through their feed. This new feature has gained coverage across many national and viral news feeds such as the Daily Mirror, The Metro and Mashable.

Take a Sweaty Selfie and Help Raise Money to Support Brain Tumour Charity

How can a sweaty selfie help raise money for a charity you may ask? A very spirited son and daughter have gone that extra mile to make their mother’s dying wish a reality.

The Sun’s fitness expert Nicki Waterman adored her daily runs and keeping fit. At the age of 53, she proved to everyone that anyone can get up and run – this was a passion of hers right up until the last three months before she died of a brain tumour.

After Nicki’s death in August, her family wanted to fulfil their mother’s dying wish of helping people realise their fitness potential and raise money to help others with brain tumours. Daughter and son – Alex, 31 and Harry, 30 – are asking people to take a ‘#sweatyselfie’ after exercising and upload it to social media.  This is to encourage people to donate to the charity Brain Tumour Research, with every effort to find a cure for brain cancers. They both explain that with the public’s help, it could help them smash their £1 million target – that would be enough to run one of Brain Tumour Research centres for a whole year!

Celebrities such as Denise Van Outen, All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, TV presenter Kate Thornton and ‘Baby Spice’ Emma Bunton are among the many who have posted their support online.

Support them by simply posting your #SweatySelfie on your social media; nominate friends and text SNAP53 £3 to 70070 to donate to Brain Tumour Research in memory of Nicki Waterman.

This campaign has been covered by The Sun, Charity Today, Gazette News, Buckingham Today and other online titles.

Brewery creates Britain’s tiniest pub to secure national coverage

A pub claiming to be the smallest in Britain is to open its doors this week – but it may be worth squeezing in as the beers are free. Smaller than a snooker table at just 6ft by 8ft, the craft beer pub owned by London brewer Meantime is housed in a glorified garden shed in the south-east of the capital. Called ‘Make Time For It’, the Greenwich pub near The O2 arena is so small that it can only seat two people at one time – or three, if they don’t mind squashing up together.

There are two main elements to the pop-up bar that potential punters must consider… 1) Guests can’t bring in their phones and 2) they must pre-book a slot to make sure there’s no overcrowding. The idea behind the pub is to allow people to get away from it all by disconnecting from technology.

The pub will be serving six beers especially created for the pop-up experience – and visitors will get to take home a personalised bottle of Pale Ale.

Rich Myers, for the Meantime Brewing Company, says: ‘The “Make Time For It” campaign was designed to highlight the importance of time, the fifth ingredient in our beers, as well as to celebrate the best of British craft from across the country.

‘The bar was designed to help create the perfect drinking environment – a space to appreciate craft in a variety of forms and the perfect spot to spend time catching up with a mate over a beer.

The Make Time For It pub will be open from 12pm until 9pm every day from October 21 until October 30 at The Gateway Pavilions, South East London. The successful PR campaign has been featured in the Mail Online, Evening Standard and Time Out.

Stirring up a Storm

Last week we looked at a successful regional PR campaign all about making tea which was stirred up by local builders, Jelson’s. This week we see how a similar PR campaign was successful on a national level and what made it so successful.

As with Jelson’s campaign, we still have the main ingredient –  a national treasure – tea. Everyone that drinks tea in this country (approximately 84% of us) will have their own particular way of drinking it – this means that any article about making the popular brew will appeal to anyone that drinks it. Thirsty work.

Jelson’s used local university students to keep its PR campaign pegged to the builder’s own region, this campaign however sought to go nationwide so pegged themselves onto British Science Week, pulled together an infographic and offered prizes.

Members of the public were invited to create the #PerfectCuppa and share their recipes on social media using the #PerfectCuppa hashtag. The agency behind the PR campaign also researched and contacted any bloggers which advertised themselves on social as being tea lovers and asked them to join the campaign.

This carefully executed campaign blended traditional PR with the social side of things and served up some great results including coverage in the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, BBC Breakfast, Radio 4, Daily Mail, Lorraine, ITV News, Sky, and Stylist. International coverage was achieved in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Malta, Russia and India combining with coverage in the UK to a reach of over 755 million people. There were 1,539 uses of the #PerfectCuppa hashtag.

PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

It’s Friday! Which calls for another round up of good, bad and viral campaigns – this week includes a new way to help pregnant women get a seat on the bus, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a way to talk to people on the tube and a campaign raising awareness for mental health.

Pink Light Campaign

Every now and then some unusual and different campaigns get our attention and this one definitely fits the bill!

In Busan, South Korea, a bus service has trialled a new scheme where pink lights will alert passengers to pregnant women – so they can offer them a seat.

The idea is to help pregnant passengers get seats without having to awkwardly ask – and for non-pregnant passengers to recognise someone is expecting, without having to guess. The Pink Light campaign works by women carrying sensors that activate pink lights next to priority seats on the Busan-Gimhae Light Rail service – it was tested by 500 women over a period of five days.

The sensors look like badges, have six months’ worth of battery life, and must be carried on the outside of their clothing/bag. Women can apply online, have their pregnancies confirmed, and pick up sensors from various offices and stations in Busan.

This campaign is similar to that of Transport for London which offers a free pin badge to pregnant travellers which reads ‘Baby on Board’. While some welcome the idea, for some wearing a pink sensor on their bag could be seen as quite embarrassing.  The Pink Light campaign “feels a bit like an overly complicated solution to a simple problem”, said Ms Gibson, from parenting podcast, Scummy Mummies.

“I found the level of attention embarrassing when I wore the ‘Baby on Board’ badge – I’m not sure how comfortable I would feel with pink lights going off when I got on a train”.

Hmm, while the idea of this campaign is beneficial we are not sure how necessary this is. We would like to think if a pregnant woman was travelling on public transport that someone would be kind enough to offer her a seat without the need for a pink light!…..Perhaps we are being too optimistic.

This campaign has been covered by national and online press such as Mashable, BBC News, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and The Business Insider.

The video for the pink light campaign can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxpjfnOTLzs

Ice Bucket Challenge

As the Little Bird team launched the #pinklipselfie for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise money for Breast Cancer Haven, we looked into other successful social media campaigns linked with charities and didn’t really need to look any further than the Ice Bucket Challenge that took the social world by storm.

Here’s how they did it…

The Ice Bucket Challenge went viral during the summer of 2014. In the US, most people donated to the ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Association, otherwise known as motor neurone disease. In the UK, most people donated to the Motor Neurone Disease Association and some donated to an alternative charity.

The challenge was brought to mainstream audiences when television anchor Matt Lauer did the Ice Bucket Challenge on NBC’s The Today Show in July. On the same day, golfer Chris Kennedy took the plunge and nominated his cousin whose husband had ALS for 11 years. Kennedy’s challenge was the first documented instance of the challenge being connected with ALS.

It didn’t take long for social media to be flooded with videos of people getting doused by icy water and people weren’t afraid of nominating the famous social users either. Stephen Hawking was nominated but had to decline due to a bout of pneumonia, he did however enlist his three children to take the challenge for him. Barack Obama was also challenged; although he declined he did donate $100. Former President George W. Bush completed the challenge and nominated fellow former President Bill Clinton. David Cameron was challenged by both Alex Salmond and Russell Brand but also declined choosing to donate instead.

What made the Ice Bucket Challenge so successful?

The Ice Bucket Challenge combined our natural competitiveness, social media peer pressure and our overwhelming online narcissism with an easy yet visually impressive task. This winning combination led to more than 2.4 million tagged videos circulating Facebook. The challenge struck a harmonious balance between mass interest and individual investment. By going social, the campaign reached a worldwide audience but by tagging your friends to nominate it felt personal.

Did it work?

Well, the results speak for themselves, in terms of awareness; hits to the English Wikipedia’s article on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis grew from an average of 163,300 views per month to 2.89 million views in August 2014.

As for the money side of things, within weeks of the challenge going viral, The New York Times reported that the ALS Association had received $41.8 million in donations in just two months, more than double the amount the association received for the whole of 2013! At the end of August 2014, the ALS Association announced their total donations since July had exceeded $100 million!

Tube Chat or Not to Tube Chat? The new badge encouraging commuters to talk to each other

The question on everyone’s lips is – would you make conversation with someone on the underground? One man took on the challenge.

In September, unofficial badges begin appearing on the underground asking – ‘Tube chat?’ The Tube Chat pin was supposed to highlight to other commuters that the wearer was happy to make conversation. The man behind the badges says he thought handing them out would be “so much fun,” however this slowly back fired.

Jonathan Dunne, who is originally from the US, says it was “difficult” to even get commuters to take one of the free pins. Dunne made 500 pins for about £100 and handed these out at Old Street Station, known to be the geographical manifestation of the silent Tube-traveller’s nightmare.

Why go and make a batch of pins you ask? Mr. Dunne, who lives in London, believes his fellow city dwellers are more friendly than they let on. He was inspired by a desire to get London (population: 8.7 million) talking on public transport in the way they do in his hometown of Durango, Colo. (Population: 18,000): “The idea started during the Olympics, in a social thing at work. I was like people just need to be friendlier so I thought I would start on the tube. If I were to do it again, maybe not go to Old Street. But overall it’s been absolutely fantastic.I was discouraged at first as it seemed everyone hated me but now I’m feeling happier”.

Despite Dunne feeling happier about the campaign, commuters are still talking about it (#tube_chat/#tubechat) and really don’t like the idea of a random stranger trying to talk to them!

This particular campaign has been covered by national, international and online press such as BBC News, The Daily Mail (416 shares), The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent (105 shares), Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post.

#IAMWHOLE is removing the stigma that comes with discussing mental health problems

The NHS and YMCA joined forces on this social media campaign, to create an activity that will raise awareness in light of World Mental Health Day 2016. The anti-stigma campaign revealed that one in three young people with mental health difficulties feel stigmatised, with more than a third saying this happens at least once a week.

To combat this, the campaign encouraged the nation to speak out by drawing a black circle on the palm of their hand and asked them to post a photo of themselves across their social media channels displaying their circle. The hashtag #IAMWHOLE was used across twitter, Facebook and Instagram this week as everyday people and celebrities jumped on board to lend a helping hand.

The campaign was very successful and achieved its aim of spreading the word and getting people to discuss the topic of mental health. This was a positive campaign that was simple to execute and it achieved a huge amount of support across all social media channels. The PR campaign also appeared on ITV, This Morning, PRWeek and was shared multiple times on Facebook.

PR Campaigns, The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The time has come again for the Little Bird team to source their good, bad and viral campaigns. This week’s campaigns include an Instagram socialite, a singing dentist and an exotic pop-up in Manchester.

#Likemyaddiction

We all know the ‘typical’ Instagram type; young, beautiful, always on a beach and getting thousands of likes on every picture they post.

One in particular was 25 year old Louise Delage who cultivated a feed of beach shots, boat parties, fancy dinners and, most commonly, snaps of her with a drink in hand.

When she arrived on Instagram on August 1^st this year, many assumed she was nothing more than a chic Parisian. However, social star Louise, who racked up over 50,000 likes in a couple of months—was actually part of a campaign from Paris agency, BETC, called ‘Like My Addiction’.

When you look closely at the pictures on Louise’s account, in every one she’s holding an alcoholic drink – in hindsight Louise could be described as a textbook alcoholic.

The campaign was created with help from production company Francine Framboise for Addict Aide, which sought to raise awareness of alcoholism among young people.

Its aim was to highlight how easy it is to not only ignore the signs of alcoholism, but perhaps also how easy it is to subconsciously enable it by ‘liking’ content constantly depicting damaging behaviours.

The team behind the campaign studied fashion bloggers; their attitudes, the filters they most commonly used and then posted two to three posts per day at high-traffic moments “when people are stalking others”. To ensure the content was found, each post included a mix of 20-30 hashtags related to fashion, food, nature and parties.

Hours after the reveal, Addict Aide saw five times more traffic to its site than normal. The story generated over 140 articles – including one on Mashable and became a trending topic on Twitter in France. Overall, Louise Delage’s sad secret won 500,000 total video views across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and posts by key opinion leaders.

The video accompanying the campaign can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecRheslTlwE.

Singing Dentist Goes Viral

Basingstoke-based Dentist, Dr Milad Shadrooh aka The Singing Dentist, is changing the way people think about their teeth after creating his first parody video in February. With over 129,000 views to date, Shadrooh’s first two minute parody of Happy (Gappy) by Pharrell Williams encourages watchers to brush for at least two minutes, twice a day and floss.

Other parodies promoting dental hygiene by The Singing Dentist include Michael Jackson songs – Wanna Do Some Teeth Whitening, a parody of Wanna Be Startin’ Something, and Filler, a parody of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

As the videos have been shared across social media, Shadrooh’s singing dentistry videos got picked up by viral websites such as LAD Bible. Since the video got shared on LAD Bible it has been viewed more than 10 million times – becoming one of the fastest shared videos on the site. National press and TV began picking up on his videos too and invited him to interviews to share the idea behind the Singing Dentist and how it came about.

From teeth whitening to fillers, visit http://www.singingdentist.co.uk/  for more dental hygiene parody videos.

Various journalists have covered this campaign on TV (BBC South News, Good Morning Britain, Lorraine) and within national, regional and online titles such as The Daily Mail, Metro, Dentistry.co.uk and many more.

Dr Shadrooh has even made it onto the front cover of Dental Nursing magazine! #singingdentist. We want this dentist please!

Totally Easy Flying

Some PR campaigns are designed to get traction in the press with as much coverage as possible, others are designed to engage people on social media and grow followers. Other PR campaigns are designed to communicate directly with the consumer and this is the route the Trinidad and Tobago Tourist board took to promote its first flight from Manchester to Tobago which launches next month.

As a very local campaign aimed at Mancunians, the sunny tourist board hosted a two day pop-up at the Manchester Trafford Centre over the first weekend in October designed to bring the colourful Caribbean to the autumnal northern city.

The creative pop-up was made up of four zones: Relaxation, Adventure, Nightlife and a Scuba zone. The different zones treated shoppers to a spot of escapism allowing them to be fully immersed into Caribbean culture and experience laid back island life first hand. Before entering the pop-up people were required to check in, as if they were flying off to a holiday destination. There were a range of fun activities to try, including a limbo challenge, digital biking, jazz music and lots of competitions.

Sheona Walker, promotions analyst at Tobago UK said: “We wanted Mancunians to live and feel our island and to really bring it alive. The Tobago Island experience allows consumers to be educated about the destination and immerse themselves in the location before they decide to fly.”

We really liked this experiential PR campaign; it was localised, well thought out and very clear in its messaging as well as a fun experience. I’m sure the new route will see many flying out in search of some winter sun over the next few months.

Journalist of the Month

Natasha Lovell-Smith is our favourite foodie journalist. Natasha is not just a journalist though; she’s the Editor of Great British Food Magazine and has been since 2013. Natasha writes, edits, subs and commissions’ features and news stories as well as managing a team of writers and freelancers!

What are the 5 words that best describe you?

Kind, blunt, facetious, curious, hungry!

What magazine do you love reading and why?

Aside from food I’m obsessed with cinema (they go so well together!), so probably Sight & Sound.

What is your favourite book?

I studied English lit in uni so should probably say something more high-brow, but I’ve been obsessed with Stephen King since I was little (probably way too young) and I find his early books oddly comforting. The Stand covers it all for me – love, survival, the strength of the human spirit – plus a madman with a stash of nukes in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas….

Which song makes you dance?

It takes quite a lot to force me on the dance floor, but I can’t resist anything by Talking Heads or Devo. I also do a brilliant Chandler dance after one or two shandies.

What has been your best career moment?

Probably being promoted to Editor after a pretty short time as deputy. It’s also probably the scariest moment, but all the best things are a little terrifying.

What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

Don’t stress out about the future – everything will fall into place. And maybe not to waste so much money in Topshop.

Where are you happiest?

Spending the night drinking pilsner and vodka with my boyfriend in a cosy basement bar in Krakow, having just demolished a huge quantity of pierogi and crispy pork knuckle. A very specific memory I’d love to recreate!

Who would be your number one dinner guest be and why?

Anthony Bourdain – despite exploring practically every corner of the world he still has such a thirst for new experiences and travel, it’s so infectious. I’d love him to plan my next adventure for me.

If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why?

Teleportation would make my elaborate travel plans much more feasible. Plus the ability to eat all the pork scratchings I want with no consequences!

If you had to ask us one question what would it be?

What’s for dinner?