5 Steps to Activate a PR Stunt

Experiential marketing is a great way to gain publicity for your brand.  PR stunts can gain attraction from a live crowd and can live well beyond the actual stunt through online dissemination.

We recently managed a card flip stunt for Anheuser-Busch.  The event took place at Busch Stadium during a St. Louis Cardinals (woo-hoo for the 2011 World Series Champions) vs. Chicago Cubs game.  A hot rivalry, this was a packed game with a huge built-in audience.  Budweiser was promoting Global Be(er) Responsible Day through a two-sided employee billboard to promote Designated Drivers.  The stunt was executed immediately after the end of the third inning.  The cards were flipped 6 times for a 45-second stunt that captured the attention of the entire stadium and was promoted on-air and online.  The flip appeared on the stadium JumboTron and was on-air during the game on the Fox Sports Network.

Coordinating a stunt of this size takes a lot of advanced planning and organization to ensure it goes off without a hitch.  We’ve provided some tips below to help you with to plan your next PR stunt.

  1. Planning – Plan all steps for the stunt.  Be sure to think about your goals and objectives.  What do you hope to accomplish and how will you measure success?
  2. Coordination – You will need to coordinate with all involved parties.  For the Anheuser-Busch stunt, we coordinated with their marketing agency, brand managers, stadium officials and the Anheuser-Busch employees who activated the stunt.
  3. Training & Practice – Be sure to train the Brand Ambassadors who will be activating the stunt in advance.  You may only have one shot to get it right so you need to make sure everyone understands their role and can complete the task well in advance of the program’s launch.  Do a full-out dress rehearsal to make sure everything is in place.
  4. Capture – Be sure to take lots of photo and video of the stunt. After spending so much time preparing for your event you want to make sure you have the best footage to share.  If possible take the extra step to hire professional photographers and videographers to capture the event.
  5. Promote – Share your story!  Post the photos and videos online, promote via social networking sites and send press releases to the media to alert them of your activity.

Following these steps will help ensure you have everything covered when planning your next PR Stunt.  Or better yet give Pro Motion a call and let us handle it for you, we are the experts after all!