For companies willing to be a little creative and push the limits, stunt activations are the perfect way to take their brand to the people and the next level, all whilst creating strong leads and interactions with their target demographic.
We all know of a stunt gone wrong, or an attempted quick gimmick by a company, that has significantly backfired – but a well-executed, sophisticated activation can achieve very real and tangible results, elevating and positioning a brand in new light and attracting new customers.
The Red Bull Stratos stunt is known world-wide and created immeasurable cut-through for the brand, resulting in a hundred million cumulative views on YouTube. Everyone held their breath as Felix the astronaut jumped from space, free falling until he landed on the ground some 40 kilometres away. On Huffington Post alone we counted 18 articles about the event. The stunt even spawned a documentary “Space Jump” on National Geographic. The result of Stratos was a significant increase in Red Bull’s brand prestige, cementing themselves as an industry leader in energy drinks.
The truth is, you don’t need to jump from space to pull off successful stunt activations. The team at KDPR conceived and executed an “Unforgettable Proposal” event in Queen Street Mall for Valentine’s Day this past week. While not quite as adrenaline-charged as Stratos, it was successful in generating hundreds of thousands of impressions, interactions with the client’s brand and adding numerous potential new clients directly into to their database.
So what are the common themes of successful PR stunts? Firstly, they’re out of the ordinary and are specifically designed to create a sensory or emotive reaction from the target demographic. They also have a creative premise that relates directly to the brand and the brand’s personality. For instance, Red Bull associates itself with extreme sports and adventure, so jumping from space takes the brand to new heights…quite literally. Finally, these events had PR firms and practitioners behind them who ensured smooth logistics, brand alignment, audience engagement, partnership negation and delivery as well, of course, as media coverage.
So if this has you excited to extend your brand a little further and contemplate how a stunt activation could work for your company, please give us a call. We promise we won’t encourage anyone to do a space jump 40 kilometres above the earth’s surface but we can’t promise the concept won’t be just as exciting.