The PR silly season stunts we should banish to Room 101

You remember this, it’s where hard news goes out of the window and PRs take a trip to the creative attic, throw the dust sheets off a few creaky old ideas and drag them blinking into the media spotlight.

Some give them a new lick of paint and parade them as the latest thinking and others can’t even be bothered to do that.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to silly season.

You’ll recognise these ideas because, well, you’ve seen them all a million times before and you probably pitched or bought them yourself – 10 years ago. Hopefully you’re a little older and wiser now?

If you’re unsure of the ideas of which I speak, start to get nervous because there’s a chance that you are still pitching them.

I’ll be giving a few top examples later (I hesitate to say a ‘top 10’ as these might also make the list) but, before I do, I want to identify when silly season starts.

What heralds the arrival of this creative abyss?

Well, after the significant and robust research of my navel, I can pinpoint that Royal Ascot and the mind-numbingly dated brand hat opens the official floodgates of this particular PR Room101.

Yes, this dead horse is still being flogged – pardon the pun. It’s 2012 and there was someone with a Subbuteo football pitch on their head, a Love Heart emblazoned with the words ‘fine filly’, a fried breakfast and a giant Olympic Torch.

O come on! Why? Because it got coverage in the Baltimore Sun?

I have to hold my hands up and admit that I did this for a client in 2002 and it wasn’t new then. Ten years later and is this really a defendable use of a client’s budget? Does it drive sales, increase brand engagement, influence consumers in any way at all? No.

So this brings me on to some examples that I and a number of my industry colleagues have already had the misfortune to see or expect to see over the next eight weeks.

1. Making a dress out of stuff other than normal material – generally includes vegetables, sweets, chocolate or even this modern wonder made out of human hair (gag!).

2. Same as above but replace a dress with a piece of ‘art’. Haribo, you can do better than a portrait of the Queen made out of Starmix. Do you really need to raise brand awareness this way?

3. Look-a-likes. I don’t think I need to say anymore, Poundland.

4. Flash mobs – can we just let the good people of London get to work without having to negotiate a co-ordinated dance routine, snog, talk like a pirate-a-thon or even this lot just sitting in silence.

5. Reverse graffiti or chalk drawings on pavements or some other such pavement art. Yes, they are impressive but another hilarious picture of someone pretending to fall off nothing does not make a successful PR campaign.

I ‘m stopping there but I know that you can think of a ton more of your personal pet hates so feel free to share, be it dream jobs, that shot from American Beauty with the rose petals substituted for the ingredients of a limp salad, or the ubiquitous silly season surveys.

You may think that I’m saying you should never use these tactics again and actually I’m not (apart from the Ascot hat).

What I’m saying is, before you think about pitching or buying an idea like this please ask yourself why and what will it achieve. We can’t question why advertising agencies keep winning the big PR awards at the Cannes Lions when this is what we produce.

These can still be useful when approached with ambition, scale and a clear sense of purpose. But if you’re simply copying what went before because it got good coverage, then give the rest of us a break. This summer is already wet enough without more damp squibs adding to the misery.

Tim Downs is a director at Aberfield Communications.

What are your favourite PR stunts and which would you like to see banished to Room 101? Share your views in our comments section below...