The history of public relations is littered with publicity stunts. The aim of a stunt is to generate word of mouth-a great stunt can maintain people talking for days. The best stunts are ones that relate to the product and that are eye-catching and creative-good street theater, in other words.
Stunts also need to appeal to the target audience, needless to say. Some stunts might be regarded as offensive or unacceptable-and some even border on the illegal, as happened with one drinks company that engaged graffiti artists to spray the company logo onto buildings in London. Finding a suitable stunt is a matter of balancing great taste with powerful impact. One business discovered a startling way to do this.
One classic stunt was the fight staged in between a well-known bandleader along with a bystander, allegedly over the recipe for Pimm's. The PR man who organized the stunt paid both men to stage a street brawl, using the press on hand: naturally, the stunt produced the headlines, and generated an excellent deal of word of mouth at fairly little price.
Staging a fight between a celebrity and a bystander works fine if the celebrity agrees that such behavior accords with his or her public image. For the target audience, this event was both shocking and fascinating, and also enhanced the image of the product by making it seem worth fighting for. It really doesn't matter a great deal if it later becomes public knowledge that the stunt was staged-people are quite used to the concept of the spoof!
Make certain that your stunt is legal. Remember that the stunt should fit in with the images of the individuals involved. Be wary of upsetting the journalists-they do not like being fooled, any more than do the rest of us, but they're usually happy to go together with a spoof.
Ambush PR is about riding on the back of someone else's expenditure, and it happens frequently when companies sponsor events. Even though being an official sponsor of a major event like the football World Cup or the Wimbledon tennis tournament carries an excellent deal of publicity value, it does price a lot of money as well, and often the sponsors are lost among a welter of other organizations so that the payoff becomes tough to identify.
During the 1998 soccer World Cup, held in France, Nike and adidas had been clear rivals. The major advantage of soccer from a PR viewpoint is its capability to attract world TV audiences, so for global brands like Nike and adidas the attraction is apparent.
The organizers of the World Cup, FIFA, only allow one main sponsor in each business category, so Nike and adidas could not both sponsor the event. adidas "won the toss" and became the official sponsor, although some of the competing teams had been sponsored by Nike: the sponsorship fee was reputed to be £20 million, but Nike was able to ambush the event for an excellent deal much less.
Nike set up a "football village" among the startling buildings at La Défense, on the northern edge of Paris. Entry was free, and the company laid on numerous "fun" events aimed at young soccer fans. Nike was not allowed to use the World Cup logo, or even refer to the event directly, but most people visiting the Nike village were blissfully unaware of this. The business even set up a "road show" to tour France, giving schoolchildren the chance to play against a Nigerian under-17 international team. Nike's expenditure on the village was only £4.2 million, much less than adidas's investment, for very comparable results.
Ambushing adidas's efforts not only gave Nike an unearned advantage: it also detracted from the impact of adidas's PR exercise. adidas had been not quick sufficient off the mark in countering Nike, however it is hard to see what they may have done to stop Nike's actions.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Webworldarticles.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
This article was sent to us by:
Rose Becketer at
01232011
1. PR is conducted through TV companies and press releases
All articles in this directory are property of their respective authors. Additionally, read our Privacy Policy
© 2010 WebWorldarticles.com - All Rights Reserved. Partners: Gunblade Saga