Another month, another roundup of some of the most notable PR campaigns over the last four weeks. Aside from Halloween, October brought us unicorn rides, an army of robots and some extremely clever uses of social media.
Unicorn-themed cab rides
To promote ZTE’s new phone, the company collaborated with mobile network Three to offer Londoners free rides on a unicorn. They were dubbed Unicabs, giving people free lifts in a Cinderella-style unicorn drawn carriage to show how the two companies were ‘making magic together’.
Nicorette’s ‘One Breath’ campaign
As part of the national ‘Stoptober’ campaign, to encourage people to give up smoking, Nicorette launched One Breath – a 360 degree video from diver Daan Verhoeven.
Daan quit smoking and went on to break numerous free driving world records. As the viewers follow Daan Vergoeven on a dive, while being able to move the camera a full 360 degrees, he talks about his story and the benefits of stopping smoking.
British Heart Foundation finds a way to Twitter users’ hearts
October 18th marked ‘Restart a Heart’ day, so British Heart Foundation came up with a creative way to draw attention to the lack of people that know how to perform CPR.
After ‘liking’ a Tweet from the BHF with the aptly-designed like button resembling a heart, users were Tweeted back with a link to CPR training courses.
An incredibly simple campaign, the Tweet has received more than 22,000 likes and 2,700 retweets, sharing the message that only one in 10 people in the UK survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Instagram alcoholism
A fake Instagram account that showed 25-year-old Louise Delage posing on beaches, boat parties and dinner events gained a lot of traction after adding 18,000 followers and more than 50,000 likes in just a couple of months.
It was later discovered that every image on the account had one thing in common; alcohol. ‘Louise’ had been snapped with a drink in her hand in all of her photographs and the account was in fact revealed to be a campaign from Addict Aide, a French organisation that supports people struggling with alcohol dependency.
The campaign highlighted how easy it is to not only ignore the signs of alcoholism, but also how easy it is to subconsciously endorse it.
A new travel experience for Londoners
There is often an element of mystery surrounding PR campaigns, and easyJet used exactly that when they created a mysterious plane door that appeared overnight in Shoreditch, London.
The door left many passers-by intrigued about what may be on the other side and easyJet later disclosed that the door led to an art installation which provides an immersive experience, designed to inspire people to travel.
Teaming up with the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, the experience took visitors on a whistle-stop tour through Holland, guided by a cast of live actors.
By Natalie Garland
