Did you know in 2011 the South Australian Government pulled a publicity stunt by sending out 55 gold fishes to marketing executives to promote tourism for that region. The gold fishes were sent with a fishbowl along with the title "Be a big fish in a small pont and come and test the water," ..... well surprise surprise the fish died on their way to these marketing executives. All of them!

http://www.onlinemarketinggurus.com.au/

This disastrous campaign is what NOT to do if you are marketing an event or a brand name. The truth is if you are marketing something and you want to do it well, you must not only be creative but you need to have foresight and most importantly you need persistance. We at Cubic Promote have worked with hundreds of publicity campaigns and we rekon to have a succesful PR campaign you need to start things off with a loud bang.

Publicty Starts With a Bang

Start off loud and start off with the intention to engage! If you seek publicity for your organisation you seek attention. So go get attention and make sure people know about it. Now when I mean seek attention I do not mean turning up the P.A volume at your organisation and shouting (although this has also been successful in the past with some). Here are some examples of ones we have seen:

1) New Chinese restaurant launches with a very public and loud traditional Dragon Dance complete with firecrackers.

2) Liberal Party (political party in Australia) - Politicians know that making big statements can kick off free publicity for themselves. This is why they make all sorts of noises knowing that some of these remarks will stick. The most memorable one? Tony Abott declaring that voters should vote for him because his daughters are hot!

3) A snack food brand called Fantastic launches a snack called Delites. They set up a vending machine which will dispense a snack if you press a button 5000 times. The result? Some hilarious scenes, a lot of exposure to passer bys and even more exposure by blogs such as ours mentioning the stunt. Their YouTube clip has also gathered millions of view too! Check it out here:

What Next After the Bang?

Relentless hard work is needed after the bang to get on-going publicity and brand awareness with what you are doing. Far too often I see spectacular marketing campaigns that get forgotten quickly because the organisation do not do anything to sustain the message, which is a real shame. Here are some ideas to maintain interest in your publicity event.

Online Publicity Exposure

Social media and websites! Too much have been written to me to get into the details, however I would like to say that if you have a spectacular Bang then you want to follow that up with content and material. For example you can sustain interest by providing material in drips and feeds to keep people engaged such as a behind the scenes look, or perhaps interview feedback by the organisers and particpants of the event.

Hiring specialists companies to assist you with creating and maintaining great content is essential. There are companies like http://www.onlinemarketinggurus.com.au/ that assist in getting your content noticed on the web. A side benefit is getting great search engine ranking at the same time too which is a definite bonus.

Offline Publicity Exposure

If possible do reserve a budget for your offline marketing efforts to sustain publicity and to get some valuable brand exposure. Use every tool available at your disposal including:
- Custom Branded Merchandise: Use these as freebies or as fund raising merchandise. Opt for items that are appealing and have longevity
- Traditional media, TV, Radio, Print
- Physical on-going publicity stunts

How Long Publicity Campaigns Typically Last

Realistically all publicity campaigns will fizzle out. It is an on-going process that requires a huge amount of dollar spend and effort. The duration of campaigns a typical PR company may work with is:

Up to 2 months: 10% of all campaigns
Between 3 to 6 months: 45% of all campaigns
Between 6 to 9 months: 28% of all campaigns
Over 9 months: 15% of all campaigns

As you can see from the statistics most campaigns run out of steam. To maintain a strong publicity campaign requires a lot of money and energy. Have you ever wondered how Samsung took over Apple in the world of Smartphones in terms of number of units sold? Well Apple spent around $1 billion in advertising, Samsung as an entire group (including their other products) spent over $4 billion. So the duration of your publicity campaign is unfortunatley related to the amount of money and time you are willing to spend.