Looking at past PR successes can be instructive for understanding where companies can grow and build positive consumer sentiment, sometimes in response to difficult circumstances.
In the following sections, we provide some instances where PR efforts have resonated positively with the public.
Some of these are also intertwined with lessons learned by brands on how to engage with the public over social media.
What is a Public Relations Campaign?
Public relations campaigns are strategies intended to gain publicity and positive public sentiment for a person, company, product, service or brand. In some cases, they are aimed at a specific niche audience. Occasionally, PR requires a crisis response.
PR campaigns are carried out through all relevant channels, including key media publications outside of ‘paid’ spaces, content strategy and disseminating engaging marketing newsletters. Campaigns also focus on establishing relationships with journalists to get important stories out in key publications.
PR also often involves booking events and speaking engagements that raise the profile of a company, its leaders or its products and services. PR event preparation helps companies maximize the impact of their public-facing efforts.
Managing LinkedIn and other social media accounts is another key PR tactic.
In the following section, we’ll examine some areas where PR stood out positively and explore why they contributed to better outcomes for the companies involved.
Reese’s: All Trees Are Beautiful
In the festive mood of the Christmas season, Reese’s released a new line of peanut butter cups in 2015 that were intended to look like Christmas trees.
Consumers pointed out on social media that the results may have been less than compelling. At best, most of the chocolate trees looked completely distorted, something like chocolate tree blobs.
The company’s Senior Manager of Communications, Anna Lingeris, responded with the following:
“We recognize that all of our trees are not exactly alike, just like real Christmas trees. We wanted to address these comments with our own personal take on what makes all trees special while reminding them that it’s the same delicious Reese’s chocolate and peanut butter shapes that you know and love. In the end, we love all of our trees.”
Reese’s launched its #AllTreesAreBeautiful Twitter campaign, which was fun and lighthearted while also somehow tapping into something a bit deeper. It provided a great example of how to conduct modern PR.
Patagonia: Earth is Now Our Shareholder
The owners of Patagonia transferred the vast majority of their shares in the company worth over $3 billion to two non-profit entities with the mission of supporting environmentalism and combating climate change.
Under the agreement, the non-profits will continue to receive profit distributions and will be obligated to run the company in accordance with these core values.
The owners opted for this instead of taking the company public, which they claimed would have resulted in increased pressure to seek short-term profits that would have jeopardized the company’s core mission. The owners probably gave up billions of dollars that would have been earned on the stock exchange from an increase in stock price due to public investment.
The public interpreted this move as selfless and authentic PR. The fact that it cost the owners billions of dollars further solidified their willingness to make a considerable sacrifice to act in alignment with their stated values.
Penguin Random House: The Unburnable Book
In response to controversy over increasing book bannings, Penguin Random House released an unburnable version of The Handmaid’s Tale. The publisher chose this title because it had often been the target of censorship due to some of its controversial content.
The new version of the book was printed on heat shield foil pages with stainless steel binding.
This symbolic action earned them significant attention and sent a strong anti-censorship statement that many readers found compelling. This was also a strong example of understanding their customer.
Dove: #TurnYourBack Campaign
In light of Dove’s customer base, the brand often takes a stance on women’s issues, which have changed throughout the years.
For years, the tendency of women to compare themselves to other women who ‘look perfect’ on social media has led to increased anxiety and depression. Now, this dynamic has become even worse with AI-generated profiles all over the different social media apps.
Dove’s #TurnYourBack campaign sent positive messages to millions of women, encouraging them to stop paying attention to fake profiles on social media and using them to compare themselves to others. Another aspect of this is encouraging young women to stop using filters on their photos that contribute to the illusion of perfection.
Among its numerous other campaigns targeting body positivity and acceptance for women, Dove’s overall body of work in PR and marketing has earned it a strong brand association with these values.
Burger King: ‘The Whoppers Tour’
Brand Twitter accounts have led to some interesting competitive exchanges between different companies, often in an attempt to one-up each other. Some of the more amusing of these occur between fast food brands, whether it involves arguing about the freshness of ingredients, pricing or taste.
In 2019, Burger King entered this realm in a new way with the Whoppers Tour app.
It offered customers a discount for ordering a Whopper at a restaurant near a McDonald’s location. In addition to the business this diverted from McDonald’s, many app users posted videos and comments on social media that added to the virality of this PR campaign.
Coinbase: Super Bowl QR Code
With an estimated 137 million viewers, the Super Bowl offers advertisers the single biggest one-time audience in the world. In 2024, it cost $7 million to run a 30-second spot. Super Bowl ads are a big gamble and aren’t always successful, but in some cases, they can provide a nearly instant and colossal boost to business.
In 2022, Coinbase took out a 60-second ad at an estimated $14 million for an ad that just featured a floating QR code.
Within a week, the company’s app shot up to the second most downloaded on the Apple store, and the ad itself generated a lot more publicity.
In an ad space this expensive, most companies go with the highest production values. However, the results of the Coinbase ad show that in an environment like this, standing out and meeting the campaign’s goal may mean going as basic and low-budget as possible.
IKEA: Buy-Back Friday
IKEA generated a lot of store traffic with its buy-back Friday campaign, which allowed customers to sell their old furniture on-site. This was presented as a sustainability campaign as it provided an alternative to throwing old furniture in the garbage.
This PR campaign didn’t require donations or additional revenue expenditures from the company. Ostensibly, it actually added to IKEA’s bottom line because it allowed the company to sell items back to consumers at a profit.
Meanwhile, many of those dispensing with old furniture would need to replace it with new items, so bringing them to the store was a key part of fostering sales among an ideal target market.
Overall, this was a good PR move because it fits into the brand’s messaging of sustainability while increasing foot traffic in its stores and creating a new revenue channel.
Lego: ‘Let’s Build Together’ Campaign
Brands like Lego have experienced unique challenges in a marketplace where consumers have increasingly moved toward digital entertainment and away from toys.
However, the internet and social media tools provide an avenue for more traditional brands to connect with and engage with consumers.
In this campaign, Lego successfully leveraged its online presence to launch a new app that gamified Lego building for up to four people, providing instructions for each new Lego step. Lego also encouraged the growth of its online community by asking customers to share videos of their Lego projects online.
An increased social media presence for the right reasons is almost always positively correlated with higher sales and brand engagement. This is a case where a traditional company found a creative and interesting way to usher its brand into the digital space while still maintaining its focus on a hands-on product.
A Few Core PR Principles
We see some common threads in these campaigns that helped lead to their success, although each one is a little different:
- The tone is almost always positive, uplifting, sincere or playful.
- The PR efforts are consistent with the company’s core mission. The messaging may have undertones that resonate with broader principles or values.
- Getting attention in a context when most marketing efforts are spectacular may favor those who go with the basics by contrast.
- Traditional and legacy brands need to innovate and embrace social media in order to remain relevant in the eyes of consumers.
- Actions in alignment with ethical statements go a long way toward legitimizing and strengthening a brand.
- One of the ingredients for going viral is to get the public involved on social media. When they are compelled to create their own content, it broadens the scope and the impact of a PR campaign.
This sums up some of the core principles in the above examples of successful PR efforts. We hope this was helpful!
UPRAISE offers a wide variety of PR services. It can help to get an expert who can step in and quickly work to generate quality awareness. Feel free to reach out for more information.
