The Step by Step Guide on How to Execute a Great Publicity Stunt

Publicity stunts can be a great way for brands to gain exposure, whether for a specific product or just to raise awareness of the brand and its values in general. That said, they’re also a tricky thing to get right – you want your stunt to be shocking for the right reasons, safe, original and perhaps most importantly, newsworthy. Check out our tips on doing it right below:

1) Work out what your objective is

Specific, measurable objectives can help to define any project more clearly, and this is no different. Ask yourself what you want to get out of it? What scale do you want your stunt to be on? Do you want to reach a few thousand people in person with a city-centre street team style event like Coca Cola’s Holidays Are Coming truck, or do you want to create a viral video that’s shared widely on social media? Alternatively, is it something more old-school you’re looking for – do you want your story to be *gasp* covered in the local paper?

2) Stay on message and keep it interesting.

Although you want your stunt to be entertaining and interesting, it also needs to be on brand and make sense in the context of your brand identity and the rest of your marketing. For Greenpeace to do a stunt which involves driving a fleet of matching branded supercars through London, for instance, would be completely off-brand and nonsensical. On the other hand, for Kanye West’s sneaker brand, Yeezy, to do the same might be more on brand.

3) Be ready to piggyback and join existing conversations.

Skittles: LGBT Campaign

There are endless opportunities for brands to hitch a ride on the news agenda and pull off a stunt which makes the story into an opportunity to talk about your brand. One great example of this is when Skittles and Tesco collaborated on a project to sell ‘rainbowless’ Skittles in white bags to mark Pride month. The collaboration saw massive attention for both Tesco and Skittles without detracting from Pride – 2p was donated to LGBT+ charities for each pack sold.

In order to be able to pull off stunts like this, it’s important to be able to react to news quickly sometimes. Set up a chain of command for decisions about spur of the moment stunts to be authorised so you can get the ball rolling quickly.

4) Give your stunt a memorable and orginal message.

Copying a stunt that’s been pulled off by another brand is often a sure fire way to fail, so make sure that your idea is totally original to you. It also needs to be audacious – brave, risky stunts are more likely to make the news and entertain consumers, if it’s too dull for the media to cover it then your stunt could become a huge waste of money.

5) What could go wrong?

ODEON CINEMAS

Think through every angle of your stunt and work out anything which could go wrong, and what your plan is to mitigate that. Think about it not only from a health and safety or operational angle, but also about the ways in which any elements could be misunderstood or misconstrued and reflect badly on you. When you’re sure you’ve thought of everything, invite an outsider to critique the idea. Is it as funny or entertaining or interesting as you thought? And can they think of anything else that might go wrong?

Hire a celeb to help with your publicity stunt

Involving a celebrity in your publicity stunt is a great way to ensure it gets an extra bit of publicity right from the get-go. We’ve got hundreds of brilliant celebrities on the books here at MN2S London talent agency, so whether you need a TV chef for a candid camera prank or an athlete to add some star quality to your stunt, get in touch with us today.