After having blogged about which social media tools you can use for PR, this time I decided to bring to you a palette full of creative, effective and impressive online PR campaigns which I happened to come across in the past and recent years. The list involves my favourite campaigns which can help you get a cue, as to on what lines your online PR campaigns can be made in order to get maximum reach, exposure and engagement. Arranged in random order, the list is as follows:
1. Cadbury Dairy Milk ‘Say it with Silk’ Campaign
Cadbury Dairy Milk recently launched its ‘Say it with Silk’ campaign on Facebook which threw up a mystery around the picture of a new machine that was posted on their Facebook timeline saying it is coming soon to your nearest store and it will help you say it with Silk. They asked their fans to guess what the machine would do for them? They also extended the same campaign on Twitter where ‘Tweeples’ were asked to tweet using #SilkMystery about their ideas and views regarding the new mysterious machine.
2. #FekuExpress Campaign
Narendra Modi has always enjoyed his status of being super active on Twitter. He has an audience that tends to support him strongly on this platform. Congress has had a very hard time in trying to beat BJP on this ground till the last month. On 11th of August #FekuExpress started trending on Twitter. Congress supporters used this term and created a microsite depicting Narendra Modi atop a train. They then invited people to predict the lies that Modi was likely to repeat and gave away tickets of Chennai Express to the winners who could predict them correctly.
This according to me is by far the cleverest political PR campaign ever launched on social media. It has successfully beaten the ‘Feku’ Modi machine at the social media game. If you are into political PR where the mudslinging games happen openly, then this how clever you need get while launching an online PR campaign. Congress supporters succeeded in hitting out at Modi on Twitter, the same territory where he once enjoyed the king’s status. This campaign also created tons of coverage by almost every media organization. How better can a campaign get than one which creates coverage across all the media without having to invest anything than a negligible cost of creating a microsite?
3. Society Tea’s –A Brand New Day Campaign:
While most of the other brands have been using Facebook and Twitter as their online PR tools, Society Tea went on to do something ‘Hatke’ by using blog as their main strategic tool for their online PR campaign and then spreading the word via social networking sites. It invited four online influencers to blog about new interesting things and activities that they would do every day in the span of 10 days. The idea behind the campaign was to inspire people to live each day a little more with a new zest while continuing to do what they tend to do on daily basis thus making their every brand new day count.
The reason this makes it to my list of favourite campaigns is that, overall it came out as a very honest campaign, involving real people who shared their real life experiences. Thus making it sound more credible and authentic. It was able to strike a chord with its audience and connect with them on a more personal level. All this successfully created a positive word of mouth for the brand. It was designed to stand out yet it perfectly fit in with the brand’s perception and reputation, brand’s positioning and image. This is what you can precisely learn from this campaign.
4. Diesel India’s Facebook Flash mob Campaign
Diesel India had organised a sale for its employees and their family and friends in order to celebrate with them its second anniversary. But they had a challenge in front of them to promote and spread the word about this in a very short span. So they decided to go the social media way. They organised a flash mob on their Facebook page, something that was taking place for the very first time on Facebook. In sync with this, they also designed a microsite where the employees could avail discounts through QR codes. Within the short time span this campaign got more than 5000 signs ups, creating the maximum exposure and required buzz.
This campaigned impressed me firstly because it was targeted towards employees and their friends and family and secondly because it succeeded in drawing the loyal fans of Diesel into its stores. Many times brands forget that employees are also their public and executing campaigns like these where you make them an important part of your anniversary celebration can help you build long lasting relationship with them. When brands like Pizza Hut and Pantaloons are busy celebrating their anniversaries with customers, Diesel’s idea to celebrate its anniversary with its employees is something which I feel is worth appreciating.
5. Honda CV-R #Pintermission Campaign
While most of the brands have taken to Facebook and Twitter, Honda chose to do something unusual by experimenting with Pinterest in order to promote Honda CV-R. It gave a chance to five most active Pinners to splurge $500 on the things that they have been pinning. They were asked to take a day off from Pinterest and this was called as #Pintermission. The $500 offer was tweeted to the five selected Pinterest users and they were asked to share images of what they bought with their $500 on Honda’s Pinterest page. Since there was something for users to participate and benefit from, this campaign is what I would call a clever one. Such campaigns can help you create a lot of buzz required for promotion and also increase engagement for you.
So, as you can see all the examples listed above can help you understand that if planned, managed and implemented properly, online PR campaigns can get you wide spread exposure and engagement. If you want to have far reaching effects then try inviting influencers and active bloggers to tweet and blog about you and your campaign. They will help you to quickly spread the word and get you maximum visibility.
I hope you find my list interesting.
Please let me know which online PR campaign is your favourite?