Top of the PR pops: March highlights

March has flown by in a flash and spring is finally here. Looking back over the last month it has certainly been packed full of interesting campaigns to keep the PR industry talking and entertained. 

For our monthly round up I'm keeping it short and sweet but I'd love to hear about your favourite recent campaigns, research pieces you've found most interesting or crises that have made you cringe, so please tweet us or leave a wee comment below. 

Do it for Denmark! 

Scandinavian countries are known for their near perfect democracies, gender equality, high standard of living and beautiful landscapes. However, there is one problem causing concern in Denmark, the birth rate is falling so much so that it's reached a 27 year low. 

Spies Rejser, the Danish package holiday specialist may have come up with a solution. Find out what they suggest by watching the video below. It's a ridiculously brilliant campaign... 

#nomakeupselfie 

In just 24 hours the #nomakeupselfie campaign raised over £1m for Cancer Research UK. However, what's interesting is this was not started by the charity themselves but grew organically on social media before garnering national media coverage.  

Participants took photos of themselves and nominate friends to do the same, donate to charity and pass on the message. 

Some people have criticised the campaign for being more about vanity than spreading practical advice or support for those affected by cancer as well as issues regarding donations being sent to the wrong charities due to spelling or autocorrect errors with thousands being sent to WWF and UNICEF rather than Cancer Research UK. 

However, I'm sure even the harshest critics can't argue with how great this campaign has been in terms of raising valuable funds for charity and getting thousands involved on social media. 

As Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said "We have been overwhelmed by the support people have been showing us through the #nomakeupselfie trend.

We don't receive any government funding for our research and so it is phenomenal to think that the generosity of the public is enabling us to fund critical research that we didn't have the money for six days ago. Being able to fund more trials will bring forward the day when all cancers are cured."

Patronising politicians

I'm sure anyone working in PR and comms will have been given the same advice about social media countless times - understand your audience and try to engage with them by discussing the issues which they care about most. 

The Tory party failed to do this spectacularly on Twitter when the Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps posted the advert below after announcing The Budget for 2014... 

A little patronising don't you think? Check out the hashtag #ToryBingo for some very amusing responses. 

Viral videos done right 

If you read our latest white paper or some of our recent blogs then you'll have noticed that we have questioned the value of viral videos. We believe that it's much more important to reach the people who matter most to your organisation than have a popular video people want to share but is unrelated to your organisation's objectives - but ideally, you'd like to achieve both!

Earlier this month a video of apparent strangers meeting and kissing for the first time spread across social media and has been viewed over 70 million times. It was not immediately clear that the participants in the film were actors or models dressed in the clothes by the fashion brand, Wren. However, according to an article published on the 24th March Wren's sales have increased by nearly 14,000%. 

I don't know about you but I found the video almost painful to watch from beginning to end so it's appeal is a little bit of a mystery to me but as the sales results show, it definitely resonated well with their target audience and was incredibly valuable to their business. 

If you haven't seen it then you can watch it below.

The Digital PR Challenge 

Mynewsdesk and CorpComms Magazine conducted research into the changing role of in-house communicators and the challenges they face in keeping up with developing trends in digital PR. It shows that 90 per cent are now working across more areas than ever before with more involved in social and digital activities (92 per cent) than media relations (84 per cent).

The findings also suggest that 2014 will be the tipping point for social and digital PR and give insight into the different types of content which most are investing more heavily in.

There were certainly some interesting results so check them out here.