How to do experiential for digital PR

By: Colin Cather | Creative Director

The PR experiential activation, including the ‘stunt’ (although not all stunts are experiential, and not all experiential activations are stunts) is still the signature moment of most campaigns. 

At Bottle we call it StoryLiving - bringing a story to life, putting it in the hands, heads and hearts of active participants. 

In case they’re helpful takeaways, we’ve added a couple of our favourite checklists and guides like:

• The S.U.C.C.E.S.S. principles

• The Emoji Intensity guide

So how is it different, when the PR campaign is Digital?

Compared with the era when traditional media channels were the dominant way to earn audience reach, well - some things are the same, some are different. 

Same creative process

For impact, for drama, for a memorable moment, then it’s still about creative originality. Our creative process goes in steps from: 

1. Gushing (stimulus)

2. Wishing (free-flowing connection-making)

3. Mashing (clustering the intriguing wishes into researchable territories)

4. Bashing (hard yards, researching the who, what, when, where, how, how much)

5. Crushing (trampling the least-good based-up ideas underfoot, as we filter)

6. Flashing (pitching the 3 winners at the client tissue session)

For that first part, we still turn insights into stimulus and then allow the wishful stage to make fresh connections, ignoring, for now, the constraints of ‘how?’ and ‘how much?’. 

So for digital PR experiential, it’s still idea-first, channel-later. 

But those filters are always coming, and the channel-filter has always been a big one. It’s when we get selective and it means that some great ideas - brash, funny, poignant, poetic, flamboyant ideas - get consigned to crumpled post-its on the floor before a client ever sees them. Because they just don’t work in the channel. 

Different channel, different ideas-filter

Before, when the primary PR channel was usually print-media, (with maybe broadcast as an ambition), then the channel-filter usually went something like;

• Can we do it in London? (so that you can get the media there)

• Can we ambush the public in a high-footfall place (South Bank, Paddington Green, Trafalgar Square)?

• Can we sell it in 10 secs to a frantic news, features or picture editor?

• Can we show the whole thing in a single frame (for picture desks)

Now, for digital, we have two tests in the channel-filter:

• Can we capture the experience as a digital asset (usually a video)

• Can we split the story to make a digital journey? (ie. is there a part of the story that works offsite, in the digital outreach, and is there an asset that’s onsite, and worth clicking through to?)

That offsite part is the media story, and includes social media. That onsite part can be- a tool, a game, a guide, a behind-the-scenes reveal, a ‘making of’.

It’s not as though the digital-channel filter is ‘easier’ than before, it’s just different. So different ideas pass, that wouldn’t have before. 

Same sticky-story principles

Whether the experiential idea is an all-singing-all-dancing flashmob, or a big duck floating down the Thames, it only becomes scalable when it is captured and retold to a (mass) audience. When it makes a story that’s worth re-telling.

The S.U.C.C.E.S principles that Chip and Dan Heath talk about in their book ‘Made to Stick’ (what makes any story as ‘sticky’ as an urban myth) are good criteria for any experiential.

S. SIMPLE

For us, this is best tested with a simple name, headline, or hashtag. It also means that it always helps to be the world’s first / the only / the most / the best / the worst.

U. UNEXPECTED

Break a pattern, flip something - if it’s usually small, make it big, if it’s usually big, make it small.

C. CONCRETE

Make it tangible (think sensory...can this be a smell, a touch, a taste?)

C. CREDIBLE

Invest in the details (even if they’re invisible), but are part of the ‘making-of story’), and use real people (that’s why experiential is so good). 

E. EMOTIONAL

Understand and focus on the reaction. We use emojis, because they’re good cues, and sometimes they’re actually what you want. Intrigue, surprise, sadness, ROFL. 

S. STORIES

Keep the audience as the hero, and help them finish the narrative you’ve started. 

Digital comes with an extra S

Now - for digital experiential - we finish the whole acronym with an extra S for Shareability.

Before, word-of-mouth talkability was the story-test. 

Now, the content must be liked-and-shared. 

So we have to imagine this story will be passed on social media and even whatsapped to a group of friends (yeah, those dark, difficult to measure shares that we all do), and even physically handed around on a phone with a ‘wait til you see this.’

Here are the 3 drivers of shareability:

1. INTENSE EMOTION Emotion is up there already in the S.U.C.C.E.S. principles. But not all emotions are equal. The intense emotions are in our handy emoji chart to remind us of two things:

• push for intensity

• emojis are the language of shareability

2. USEFULNESS We all like to share the stuff of practical value, especially when it’s delivered in a way that reframes the problem or solution with originality. The Man Boobs demo overcame the social media censorship of showing naked female breasts, by using ‘moobs’ instead to give a tutorial on how to check for signs of breast cancer. A beautiful (ahem, beautifully ugly) piece of shareable digital content.

3. SOCIAL CURRENCY Peer-validation is a primary human motivator. We all want to look bright, funny, entertaining and knowledgeable. Before the internet we had to do this IRL, but now we just have to share stuff on social to externalise our character. With this in mind, it’s always worth considering why someone might share a piece of content.

This simple map shows that EVERYWHERE in the world, Coke is number 1, except Scotland - where Irn Bru is number 1. Every proud Scot, and everyone who knows a proud Scot, is gonna share that.

Experiential campaigns that are a Digital PR S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

Here’s a few picks: some are ours (of course), lots are by others. Some were totally made-for Digital PR, others (older ones) would have been even better in digi. 

We’re not ticking off every one of the MADE TO STICK / MADE TO SHARE. principles, just highlighting a couple each time.

The Surprisingly-Sensory

AXA: Sound Asleep
Simple, Concrete, Current

We made a few digital stories for sleep, for AXA. This (Drum award-winning) one pitted a human-composer against the AI machine-learning bots to see who could make the best lullaby (from the same library of samples). Experientially, audiences got to try both (and also judge which was made by robots). Simple (sleep = lullaby), concrete (we really did get a composer, and AI musicians to make it), and current (AI stories just fly).

The Outdoor-Drama-Indoors

GNUF Dice roll
Simple, Unexpected, Concrete

Make something small (dice) into something massive (dice so big you need a helicopter to carry them, and a mountain to roll them down). The simplest form of gambling becomes a grand stunt, only consumable via video content, concreteness is added when you see the struggle (plan changes, drama). And participation because you were able to bet online in realtime.

Let it out! Inspired by Iceland
Simple, Concrete, Shareable

Not the first tourist board to take at-home audio and broadcast it into the wilderness, but beautifully executed and on-point for our clamped-down covid-era angst. Ad-quality hi-production video, with great web design for interaction. (we like to think we might’ve ‘inspired’ this one with the CABA soundproof booth called the Venting Machine that also turned screams into coffee).

The Heartbreaking-Reveal

Dove Real Beauty Sketches
Unexpected, Credible, Stories

Canon did something similar with their Decoy idea, but Real Beauty Sketches from Dove is one of the best for emotional gasps as the FBI sketch artist contrasts women’s self image with the beautiful perception of others.

The Product-is-Proof

Warner Leisure: Anti Agin
Concrete, Credible, Current

Taking an abstract idea and giving it physical form worked for KFC gravy candles and this one, by us again. Gin was the spirit of revival, and older people were able to feel footloose and young again when they visited Warner Leisure hotels, so we made a gin with Anti Agin(g) properties.

The Take-Your-Time

MJ Bale: Grazed on Greatness
Unexpected, Credible, Concrete, Stories

Slowing something down adds concrete-ness, it’s a sensory detail that shows incredible care. So when Australian tailors MJ Bale grazed sheep on the grass of their historic cricket ground, that (much) later would be shorn for the wool for the cricket team’s suits. Well. Nothing woolly about the emotional intensity.

So for Digital PR experiential, for StoryLiving - still start with the wonderful S,U.C.C.E.S.S. -ful idea, that is not only shareable in digital channels, but it earns links and traffic because it is completed from the media-story to the on-page destination back at your own website. 

Get in contact to find out how our digital PR services can help improve your fame and findability.