We Asked Digital PR Pros About the Campaigns they LOVE to HATE

Digital PR trends come and go, but there’s no denying that some campaign styles continue to ‘bang’ even if we are a bit sick of seeing them in the press and on our timelines.   

So, for a bit of fun this week, we asked the digital PR hivemind to reveal the ONE type of campaign they love to hate, the ‘old but gold’ topics that just keep on giving, even when you thought you’d seen the last of them. 

Index Rankings

Index style campaigns are SNAPPED up by the press due to their ease of displaying and filtering large amounts of data without them having to open Google Sheets. 

But as Mark Johnstone mentions here, the ‘fudge factor’ needs to be considered when reading data from these online tables:     

Agree re indices. There’s always a fudge factor in there. Interactive maps – often not the best way to show the data, but they’re familiar, and seem to work. There are others I don’t like, but don’t think they work that well either e.g. quizzes, guides, history of

— Mark Johnstone (@epicgraphic) October 23, 2019

And Chris Nunn, just isn’t a fan full stop!

Indexes. Don’t know why but just don’t like them

— Chris N (@ChrisNunn17) October 23, 2019

Brainteasers

Do you know what really grinds Will O’Hara’s gears? Brainteaser campaigns. 

The images with lots of small elements (baked beans, flowers, etc) and there’s one odd thing out – can you find it?! Those are the worst…still get a tonne of coverage ?‍♂️

— Will O’Hara ??‍? (@willohara) October 23, 2019

Even our very own Aran from JBH wanted to weigh-in on the brainteaser bashing: 

‘Can you spot the XXX in this photo. MILLIONS of people can’t’ ??

— Aran Jackson (@jbh_aran) October 23, 2019

Granted, there’s not a huge amount of substance in these campaigns, but for a quick-and-dirty link building campaign, even they can’t argue with the coverage.

Dream Job /  Fake Job

Without doubt the MOST mentioned campaign type in the replies were to do with ‘Dream Jobs’ or ‘Fake Jobs’.  

DREAM JOBS.

— James Watkins (@James_Watkins90) October 22, 2019

Dream job!

— David White (@david_white90) October 22, 2019

We’d be lying if we didn’t think ‘Damn, I wish I had thought of that…’ whenever we see a really great example of a fake job campaign. 

The Most Instagrammable…

GUILTY! We don’t get what’s not to love with these campaigns?!

The thing with stuff like dream jobs and ‘according to Instagram’ is, as I see it, that we share those things a lot amongst our own community. But as long as journalists still like them, they’re not saturated.

— Laura Hampton (@lauralhampton) October 23, 2019

Laura Hampton put it really nicely in her reply, mentioning that if journalists still have an appetite for this type of campaigns, then they are obviously still working for many brands.

Agree with all these! Also, any that show us what ‘things would look like if’, ‘according to Instagram’ – but why not, all these campaigns work 🙂

— Hana Bednarova (@Miss_HanaB) October 23, 2019

Hana Bednarova has much the same stance, if they work then just do it!  

Can you think of a brand or product that WOULDN’T fit one of these campaigns? Daisy Sawyer thinks she has found one: 

The most Instagramable X (I’m surprised I havent seen the most Instagramable toilet brushes yet).

— Daisss (@_daisysawyer) October 24, 2019

Re-imagining XXX as XXX

Whether you like them or not, these design-heavy campaigns still land serious amounts of coverage. Dave Endsor commented that whilst he’s not overly keen on campaigns that are based around redesigns, he can’t deny the media’s appetite for them. 

Imagine *this* as *this*. How many times can you redesign Friends’ or Simpsons’ rooms in different styles?

Done to death, still gets coverage.

I admire them.

— Dave Endsor (@dave_endsor) October 23, 2019

The campaigns we expected to see in the replies (but didn’t…)

• Popularity according to number of plays on Spotify
• XXX Ranked by reviews on TripAdvisor
• Racing bar charts
• Interactive maps 

Putting personal preference aside…

Whatever your view on the campaign types listed above, there’s no doubt that the media is still hungry for shareable content in these formats.

We know that journalists working for many online publications are targeted on traffic metrics such as pageviews, unique users as well as social shares and engagement (a recent report has revealed how some publications even bonus their writers based on these kind of metrics). 

So if ‘Dream Job’ content is constantly ticking all their boxes, should we be surprised when we keep seeing them landing on top-tier publications?  

Have we missed any campaign types from the list? Weigh in on the original conversation:

Calling all #digitalpr pros, answer us this;

What’s the one #digital PR trend that you LOVE to HATE? Campaigns that do well, but you do a serious eye-roll when you see them land some awesome coverage. ?

— JBH – The Content Agency (@JBHcontent) October 22, 2019