Uniting PR and Marketing Campaigns
Companies that want to achieve success from their public relations or marketing campaigns need to unite both of their efforts to be able to do so. Here, we explore some examples of campaigns that effectively united PR and marketing to great success.
ALS #icebucketchallenge
Practically everyone remembers years ago when people were pouring buckets of ice cold water over their heads in an effort to raise awareness for The ALS Association and get people to donate money to it. Although not every single trend on social media platforms tends to dictate what’s currently very important to people as a society, it can always be useful for companies to look at what’s happening to get an understanding of how they can generate more exposure for their promotional efforts. That’s precisely what this challenge managed to do, because one of the most effective ways for companies to generate more awareness about their campaigns, and overall promotional efforts is through a challenge on social media platforms. The reason why the ice bucket challenge was so popular all over the world is that it was a great challenge, from the beginning of talking about The ALS Association to the people, pouring buckets of ice water on their heads, and the last step of everyone nominating three other people to join in on the trend. It didn’t matter who was participating in the challenge, from everyday people to famous celebrities, because it was great entertainment for millions around the world. The campaign itself was incredibly successful as it helped raise over $100 million for The ALS Association, and generated nearly 2.5 million videos online with people of all demographics being eager and willing to participate.
Dove Real Beauty
Another incredibly popular public relations and marketing campaign that generated a lot of attention with both people in general, as well as with media outlets, came from Dove. The company has built its branding around confidence and self-love and has always managed to highlight those values through its promotional efforts. That’s why when the company created a promotional campaign, titled Real Beauty, starting with a short video that showed how beauty perceptions tend to be distorted, it achieved incredible success. In the video, an everyday woman arrives at a studio to get her hair and makeup done, and her photo taken, before that photo is dramatically photoshopped to appear on a billboard, making her look completely different from beginning to end. This single video was just one of the elements of the overall campaign, as the company also hired real women to represent the campaign, instead of working with models for their public relations efforts.
