Trevor Young | PR Warrior blog | Where PR meets social media meets content marketing

Created with <3 - Lotte: From Birth to Age 12 in Time-Lapse Video

Every now and then (actually, quite often these days) someone embarks on a very cool project that strikes a chord with people and makes its mark globally, thanks to the power of the internet and social media.

When it happens, it underscores the exciting times in which we live, where some creative soul, a passionate media maker amateur or otherwise, creates something (generally a video) that captures the imagination of digital citizens everywhere.

Filmmaker Frans Hofmeester has done just that, by shooting this time lapse video of his daughter Lotte, from birth to age 12. It's a brilliant reminder that if a web content project is genuinely terrific we sit up and take notice ... not to mention that from a personal marketing standpoint, Hofmeester has drawn attention to his work as an artist in a major way. Doing something remarkable and with passion will do that!

Here is the original clip on Vimeo.

Is This the Boldest PR Campaign Ever?

I'm a sucker for simple PR ideas brilliantly executed, and if the idea is a creative one, if it's bold and daring but still strategically sound, then so much the better.

But every now and then you get a campaign that not only ticks all the above boxes but then takes the concept of 'bold' - sticks it in an innovation blender and out pops something that really is uniquely 'crazy-sexy-cool'.

Let's face it, most major brands and organisations are pretty conservative and for whom the definition of 'bold' means a slight change in the PMS colour of their logo. 

All of which puts this campaign for Slovakia's Union Insurance into a box marked 'Extra Special'.

It cut through with the public and media alike and generated tremendous buzz which, for a low interest product such as insurance, is no mean feat. 

The Brief: To launch Union Insurance as the tenth car insurance company on the market of mandatory car insurance.

The Challenge: Engage people and attract their attention towards the brand while being in a low involvement category in which the price of the product is the main differentiator.

The Execution: First part of the campaign was the creation of a 'secret organization' that took justice on the roads into its own hands - the 'The Pink Squad' was a movement against irresponsibility on the road. Within no time The Pink Squad and its actions became known nationwide; it was at this point the organization was connected with Union Insurance and its products. 

Oh, by the way, this PR campaign was devised by an ad agency - WiktorLeoBurnett.

BELOW: Case study featuring results from The Pink Squad campaign - click to enlarge.

Bank's Inertia Fuels Nude Pic 'Storm'

You have to appreciate the irony!

Some poor dude who works at Sydney's Macquarie Bank - financial adviser David Kiely - was this week caught on television checking out several racy photos of supermodel Miranda Kerr (from her recent shoot for GQ magazine).

For those who don't know the story, Kiely's workstation was in the background of a live TV interview between one of his colleagues and Chris Bath of Channel Seven news.

If you squint, you might - just might - see Kiely in the background opening up an email and checking out pics of Kerr. At the last second, he spins around and looks into the barrel of the camera - sprung! 

NOTE: we're not talking hardcore porn here but stuff you generally see on TV's Video Hits on a Sunday morning..or...the Daily Telegraph! See below...

 

Just wondering, if anyone at Macquarie Bank read the above issue of the Daily Telegraph while at work, would they be in trouble too? But I digress - this is not about HR but PR (I wonder if there's a HR Warrior out there?). 

Okay, at time of writing, according to various sources, David Kiely is in hiding awaiting some measure of internal discipline. At the very worse, if the reports are correct, he faces the sack.

Meanwhile, the YouTube clip has gone bananas and the world's media has gotten in on the act.

Pleasingly, the public have come to the broker's defence, with efforts to "save David Kiely's job" now in full swing. Kerr herself has said she would support the effort by signing a petition if required. 

Meanwhile, Macquarie Bank has reportedly stuck to the corporate line that it "takes matters such as the unacceptable use of technology extremely seriously"...yeah, yeah.

Boring and Stiff

Looking at this from a purely PR perspective, it would seem that by putting out the regulated (i.e. boring, stiff, jargon-filled) corporate response - and then going into hiding and refusing to comment - Mac Bank has fuelled the issue.

Had the bank acted swiftly - and you'd hope that sanity would prevail and Kiely only gets a rap across the knuckles at the very worst - then the negative ripple effect ("Save David Kiely's job" etc) would have been severely blunted. As it is, all eyes - the media's and the social web - remain trained on Macquarie Bank.

The bank has stuffed up the classic PR tenet - be first to fill the page. If you don't, others will...as they have in this case.

In terms of brand and reputation, if this issue is about Mac Bank upholding "moral standards", don't forget we're talking about a company that is hardly representative of community attitudes. Remember, this is the bank that has a history of paying outlandish bonuses to its senior executives, to the outcry of the media and general public.

So what I take from this is that Miranda Kerr's bottom is not acceptable at Macquarie Bank, but paying the boss a $100 million nest-egg is. 

Interesting...

Oh, as an aside, GQ Australia editor Nicholas Smith says the magazine is pitched at Macquarie Bank staff.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Smith said:

"We actively think of the Macquarie Bank worker when we put our magazine together each month."

P.S. if you didn't get my suggestion re irony at the outset, it's that traditional media (TV) instigated the social media (YouTube) frenzy - albeit inadvertently. Normally these days, it's the other way around. 

UPDATE: Macquarie Bank has finally come out and stated that Kiely would be keeping his job, according to The Australian newspaper.

So Ya Wanna Make a Viral Video? Good Luck With That!

I tend to roll my eyes when companies and brands - generally through their advertising or digital agencies - proudly proclaim they're producing a 'viral video' and expect it's going to be watched by millions.

Now, there's nothing wrong with producing cool videos (or games) for the internet. Often it can be a good tactic (BMW did it successfully years ago - remember 'The Hire'?). But the number of times I've seen companies waste money on videos that quite frankly are pretty self-indulgent, well, let's just say it doesn't make sense.

Rarely can anyone predict what will 'go viral' (obviously you can 'tick the boxes' of humour/sex/controversy etc and hope for the best) - but usually, the videos that take off in a big do so because they engage the public in some way. Quite often they're raw and authentic.

Here are two examples of videos that have hit the big time in recent times. One has been a slow-burner, taking months and months to hit the tipping point while the other became an instant global hit within a matter of days.

A Lion Called Christian

The 'Christian the Lion' video was produced in 1971 but somehow bubbled to the surface some 38 years later and gone gangbusters, fueling sales of a book that was first published in the early 70s. 

In short it's about two young Aussie guys living in London who bought a lion cub ('Christian') from Harrods and raised it in their home for a year before releasing it into the wild. 

They returned a year later to Africa to visit Christian. Check out the video to see what happens next.

Susan Boyle - Britain's Got Talent

Then there is the Susan Boyle phenomenon. 

The 47-year-old unemployed woman got through the first round of Britain's Got Talent in stunning fashion and subsequently has won hearts around the world for her performance on the show.

You've probably seen the video by now - it certainly cut a swathe through Twitter the other day! I can't include the video here because YouTube, for some inextricable reason, has disabled the embedding code - is this the work of the TV network, and if so, why? It's fantastic publicity for the show. Duh!

Like Paul Potts before her, Susan's video went viral extremely quickly, and then the media picked up on the story in turn driving even more interest.