Archive for November, 2006

Viral videos jump into the mainstream media

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Viral videos seem to have made the jump into the mainstream media this week. A viral video is a little clip that spreads from computer to computer (like a virus), as people pass it on to each other.

Media Guardian has launched a new viral video chart, (register for free to see this article) and UKTV G2 has actually launched a programme highlighting them.

Publicity oppotunities for you here? Maybe, but viral videos are by their very nature all about the content, making them very hard to force.

Although it’s entirely possible… smashing up a new Playstation 3 in front of people who’ve been queueing 18 hours to buy one, very funny!

Would certainly be worth you tracking what’s in the viral chart each week to watch trends change.

Chris Evans is a radio PR machine

Thursday, November 23rd, 2006

I once attended a seminar by Simon Woodroffe, the entrepreneur who appeared on Dragons’ Den, set up Yo Sushi and is now trying to change the hotel business with Yotel. The thing I remember most is him saying your business has to be OUTRAGEOUS to stand out. That’s why he does, look at the Yotel concept.

To me, outrageous means totally different in a way that will get people speaking… hey, that’s publicity. Listening to Chris Evans on last night’s Radio 2 drivetime show, it struck me he is the perfect example of outrageous. Not because of all the crazy stuff he did in the 90s, but because he does things no other radio presenter does (or at least he’s first to do them, the radio industry is notorious for stealing ideas from each other).

This week they are doing a UK tombola, where the name of every city, town and village in the UK is going into a giant tombola. They’re pulling out three names, then getting listeners from those areas to ring up and say why the drivetime show should come from there in a few weeks’ time.

Different, but very very simple. Brilliant.

PS Chris’s blog is also brilliant, great radio is about connecting to your listeners, and Chris is doing this even when he’s not on-air.

T-Mobile makes publicity stunt easy to swallow

Tuesday, November 21st, 2006

I love an original, creative and simple publicity stunt. Like T-Mobile creating edible phone bills, because their customers say they want them to be more digestible… ha ha boom boom.

Big KFC logo draws attention

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

When KFC redesigns its logo, it launches it by making one so big it can be seen from space. What’s the equivalent of you doing this for your business?

Could you make a temporary logo so big it can be seen all over the town for a day? Stick it on a hot air balloon? Hire a giant crane for a day?

It’s a lot of fiddly annoying work to make something like this happen – and that’s why it’s worth it, as not many people will bother, making those who do stand out.

Generate free PR off the back of the EuroMillions

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

Publicity opportunity of the week: This Friday’s £100m EuroMillions jackpot. There are so many things to do to get some publicity off the back of this unexpected event:

  • If you have a shop, give customers a free ticket for every £10 they spend instore
  • Get your staff to publish lists of how they’d spend the £100m on your company website
  • Get your staff to pledge to give 50% of the prize to a local charity if they win
  • Offer to put all your customers’ losing tickets into a free draw next week, to win £100 of goodies from your shop

Ideally, whatever you do should tie in to what you sell, or what your business is about. For example, if you have a bookshop centre, give a tickets away as bookmarks!

And whatever you do, give your local paper and radio stations a call to tell them about it. Chances are they’ll have been looking for a local angle, so you’re doing them a favour.

P.S. If you win on Friday, remember how much you enjoy reading this blog. A cheque will be lovely, thank you.

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