A good PR campaign has to start with the award entry in mind
Finder’s Michelle Hutchison is about to launch an app, and asked PRs to come up with a big idea as part of a tender process. They’ve all fallen short. Here, she argues why good campaigns have to start with the award entry in mind.
This time of year is my favourite in the PR calendar. It’s full of opportunity as we begin planning for campaigns, events and awards for the year ahead.
It’s also the most inspiring time of the year because I get to judge the cream of the Australian PR crop for the Mumbrella CommsCon Awards.
Whilst opening up my pack, an idea dawned on me: What if we turned PR campaigns on their heads? Instead of starting out with an idea then jumping into execution, what if we all flipped through award applications first and mapped out our ideas using the criteria as a guide?
One would have thought that brand outcomes rather than awards should be the objective and the essence.
If it is then successful then yes, awards come into play.
Message to client: Don’t give a rat’s how much you sell, or if the campaign is successful, just as long we get damn award. Gottit?
What a load of bollocks…
Just another client asking for an award-winning idea for award-winning free. Sign me up!
I love the honesty, creativity (and yes intelligence) of this article. Nice one.
And I’m sure you compensated each and every one of the agencies you are now publicly shaming generously for their time and effort. What a mean spirited article.
Do you think when comparing to campaigns like revoice and Amex it’s worth telling people that the budget you gave for this campaign would comfortably fit into mumbrellas “small budget” award criteria ? The agencies may not have nailed it, but to turn that into a self-serving opinion piece that is wrong on so many levels is crass.
This article would make sense if you replaced PR with “publicity”. Most great PR happens away from creative criteria.
Echo this and the comment before. Expectation vs reality seems to fall by the wayside when it comes to PR. We’re expected to perform miracles on a shoestring budget. And then get unfairly called out in articles such as this. Hope the author doesn’t intend to hold a pitch any time soon!