Creative PR & advocacy could be your brand’s differentiator
In modern media environments, there are some unsung heroes of brands’ growth and continued success. Emma Grace, executive creative director and co-chief executive officer at PrettyGreen Group, argues that good creative PR is one of them – bringing brands out of their comfort zones and offering a creative edge.
PrettyGreen on how brands can get more creative with their PR and why they should.
The influence of a third-party editorial authority has long been acknowledged as the next best thing to word of mouth, so it’s crucial to keep the media and consumer engaged, especially if brand engagement is a success metric and there’s an absence of ground-breaking ‘new news’.
In this void of anything new or interesting to say about a product or service, the nuanced earned and shared creative PR channel naturally forces a brand to focus on its behavior, its opinions, its actions in the real world, and its relevance in the lives of its consumers. Because the thing about creative PR is that it needs to be additive to the reader, it needs to be relevant in culture, and it needs to be topical – or media simply won’t engage.
It may come as a surprise to many clients, but the media really couldn’t give two sh*ts about brands (advertisements sales teams are the obvious exception), they only care about what’s in it for their readers. Whether that be social currency, empathy, education, entertainment, purpose – this is the value that consumers will engage with, and it’s why media will write about brands. This is where creative PR comes to life.
To reap the commercial rewards from creative PR, consistency in brand behavior is key. Know your creative behavioral strategy. Know what you do for your consumer and keep doing it, again and again and again. There’s a reason why you are still thrilled (but never surprised) when Burger King have another poke at McDonald's, or when IKEA uses its ownable product identity to respond to things happening in culture – we like to know what to expect.
For our Client Pantene, we have a laser focus on facilitating ‘The Power of Hair,’ so our creative PR campaigns always focus on enabling all communities to benefit from this power. This could be in the Menopause, for the Afro-hair community, for the visually impaired – this exploration of different audiences with a purpose-led lens has led to award-winning creative PR campaigns (and commercial success).
Meanwhile, for Hasbro, our behavioral creative PR strategy is to always lean into and alleviate consumer truths, even if they’re not positive. So, whether that be creating a Play-Doh Home Protection Service for neurotic parents to help cope with the bits in the carpet or launching a Monopoly Sore Losers monetary fund that families could claim against for the damage done by the board flipping tantrum from the seven-year-old. We know how we behave and engage with our consumers, and we keep doing it.
Creative PR can be a journey for many clients where product or reputational communication is their comfort zone – but stepping out of that comfort zone can lead to less ordinary returns and a real competitive edge. So, start exploring.
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We are PrettyGreen. An Independent, Award Winning Agency for communications Less Ordinary We do creative less ordinary. Creative less obvious. Less cringe surveys....
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