Have you ever seen something or heard something, and it has just stuck with you? We’ve all had this experience, and it’s a main goal of public relations. A brilliant PR stunt is something people remember. It gets people to think and connect. Here are five brilliant PR stunts that stand out from all the rest.
Purina One’s Pop-up Cat Cafe
Purina ONE attracted numerous people to its first cat cafe on New York’s Lower East Side. People lined up around the block to enjoy coffee, pastries, sandwiches, and quality feline time. Best of all, each cat at the cafe was available for adoption, and the event helped place several cats in new homes.
The Nude Entrepreneur
Enrico Frare, an Italian entrepreneur, wanted to draw attention to some of the difficulties Italian businesses are having. Frare runs E-Group, a small clothing company. In a bold PR move he took out a full page ad in a Milan newspaper with the caption “Every day in Italy an entrepreneur risks losing his shirt.” The image next to these words is a picture of Frare posing in the nude.
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
For months, this challenge dominated social media and raised awareness as well as funds for ALS. What started out as a challenge between friends quickly went viral, and soon, videos of celebrities participating flooded the Internet. In the end, the fun fundraiser brought in over $115 million for ALS research and unimagined levels of awareness to their cause.
Tinder Dog Adoptions
Tinder has gotten a lot of mixed reviews, but this PR stunt is definitely for the good. The dating app recently partnered with an animal rescue group – Social Tees – to create profiles for dogs in need of adoption. Though many users of Tinder thought the idea was silly, many more applauded it, and some dogs found their perfect partners.
Burger King’s “Proud” Whopper
Burger King made a bold statement during the San Francisco Pride Parade by featuring Whoppers wrapped in rainbow paper with the message “We are all the same inside.” The move has been applauded for being the first of its kind in the industry.
DisLife.Ru
Check out this youtu.be video about the work done by DisLife, a non-profit organization in Russia. They created a special system using a hologram of a disabled person. If a vehicle had handicap authorization, nothing happened, but if not … the holograph of a man in a wheelchair speaking to the drive appeared in the middle of the spot, sent from the handicap parking sign painted on the ground. It’s a brilliant stunt and was found in various parking areas in business centers, malls, and other locations, including the largest mall in Europe there in Russia. People who started to park in the spot and were not handicapped found the event interesting enough that many got out of their cars to take pictures or verify whether a person was actually sitting in front of them.
National Geographic – T-Rex Autopsy
This one fits right in with the release earlier this year of the newest Jurassic Park sequel – National Geographic created a huge T-Rex then threw a tarp over it on the back of a flat-bed truck and drove it around London for a day or two, to draw attention to a new program they were preparing to broadcast. The 15-meter long T-Rex created quite a stir.
NHS National Blood Week PR Campaign
In England street signs, branded products, and even publications left out the a’s, o’s, and b’s from words and logos to promote the need for blood donations. As they did so, they also asked people to do their part in filling in the “g_ps.” This one garnered a lot of attention and stopped people long enough to figure out what the words should “B.”
Each of these stunts is memorable in some way and grabbed public attention. What truly makes these PR moves brilliant is they are creative and innovative. Allowing people to connect to a company or business, and that’s PR at its best.