• Dad of 2

• Proud participant in the worst

Guinness World Record in history

• Founder of Rich Leigh &

Company

• Willy waving bit – past and

current clients include

Gocompare.com, Premier Inn,

IKEA, Amscreen,

Confused.com and Monkey

Nutrition (been nominated for

a few awards – forever the

bridesmaid)

• Founder of PRexamples.com

• Start-up co-founder

(bloggabase.com)

• Launched in late 2014

• Gloucester-based

• Passion for creative stunts and

campaigns

• Work with some great brands

already

• A focus on personalising PR

• Just employed – give us a wave,

Craig

• Geekily passionate about PR/marketing

stunts and campaigns,

• Fan of Jim Moran era of stunts (he sold

ice to an eskimo, walked a bull through a

china shop and sat on an ostrich egg for

19 days to promote a movie called The

Egg and I)

• Started PRexamples.com in Jan 2012

(wrote G&BPR for 2+ years)

• Have worked on quite a few personally…

Army recruitment drive using

Oculus

Tank through Parliament

Horse meat calculator

Zombie auditions

Curry perfume Twerking classes at Les Mills

Adobe Photoshopped unsuspecting

members of the public as they

waited for a bus and filmed the

reaction

Billboard ‘made from real

rabbit’ in New Zealand

Thai Health Foundation secretly

filmed children asking smoking

adults for help lighting their

cigarette. Sparked 40% increase in

calls.

Multi-stage campaign by The

Icecreamists asking mums to

donate breast milk, which was

then made into ice cream.

BrewDog hit the front pages with a

stunt involving beer and dead

animals (though it was made clear

the animals were road kill before

they became bottle warmers)

To promote Mercenaries 2, EA

offered drivers up to £40 free

fuel – creating (relevant) chaos

and headlines

Monopoly hid real money (£15k) in

limited number of setsMasterCard surprised 5 a side

players with crowd and Pierluigi

Collina

1.Easily explainable in a sentence

2.Relate to the product/service

they’re aiming to promote

3.Clear objectives

4.Visual – great assets, whether

images or video

1.Create a reaction - not just views,

but measurable increase in share of

voice, enquires and/or sales

2.Answer the client’s brief

3.Relate to the product/service it’s

aiming to highlight

4.Reach the intended audience

5.Inspire thought and/or debate,

shock or entertain

Creative thinking is a process.

Not always a long one, not

always a collaborative one, but

idea generation generally

involves the following steps:

• Know your client – begin with insight related to them,

competitors and their audience

• Research: What’s worked? What hasn’t? Why?

• Can you explain your idea in a sentence?

• Does it inspire thought and/or debate? Does it shock?

Does it entertain?

• Is the reaction measurable? What does your client

want from the campaign?

Break into stages of creative

content.

Consider ways to engage and

then re-engage audiences.

Not competition format?

Become a story teller. Drip

feed content to audience

using all available channels.

Timpson New Year

campaign

Easter egg product tie-in

B&Q ‘increase in demand’

memo

Footballer spotted on date in Nando’s

Pub in Newcastle changed name to

welcome incoming French players

Virgin responded to teenager

on a train

Leeds Met’s Richard Bailey:

“judgement is the most

valuable and most

underrated skill in PR”

Good example of judgement:

Sandals Resort offered Katie

Price a refund – on the basis

she didn’t choose its resorts

for ‘any future weddings or

stays’

Puma sent a flash mob to

Champions League losers

Borussia Dortmund

American Apparel’s ill-

judged sale during a

hurricane that killed

almost 300 people

• Don’t shoehorn just because it’s

a good idea

• Don’t rush to use a new medium

unless the idea fits

• Don’t mistake headlines and RTs

for success – many campaigns

are well circulated within

media/marketing, but who

outside knows or cares?

• Awards do not a happy client

make (one ex-client spent £50k

on campaign – zero return)

• Increase in sales?

• Increase in site traffic?

• Increase in links?

• Increase in sign-ups?

• How are you tracking?

It’s not always easy to

prove worth of PR – online

much easier

Google Goals blog:

goo.gl/1tHoRq

The top 20 stunts & campaigns every year…

2012: goo.gl/NXYmnH

2013: goo.gl/7efTkc

2014: goo.gl/D5iNsW