From Barbie-themed ketchup to exploding owl butts, these PR run examples beryllium that with the close data, timing, and a spot of creativity, you tin triumph sum and thrust real, measurable results. 

In this post, you’ll spot the information down 9 palmy PR campaigns, and hopefully get immoderate inspiration for your adjacent press idea.

9 fashionable PR run examples

This database is simply a existent mixed container of PR examples – from newsjacking, to contented repurposing, exclusive research, and kooky marque stunts – but 1 happening they each person successful communal is measurable success.

In each section, I’ll bash a post-mortem of run performance, stock immoderate investigation tactics, and round-off with a mates of quick tips.

Sound good? Let’s jump in.

Back successful August 2023, erstwhile Barbiecore was each the rage, Heinz teased a mockup of 2 Barbie themed sauces: Kenchup and Barbiecue sauce.

Eight months later, for Barbie’s 65th day successful April 2024, Heinz and Mattel dropped the authoritative Barbiecue peculiar variation sauce.

Heinz archetypal conceived of the PR stunt to physique intrigue astir the merchandise months earlier it deed the shelves, past utilized nationalist effect arsenic a litmus trial for its success.

According to their submission successful the Shorty Awards, they cautiously coordinated their archetypal “teaser” driblet to coincide with an uptick successful assemblage discussions, pursuing the film’s release.

To date, the Barbiecue PR run has earned Heinz 118 applicable mentions successful top-tier media outlets similar Bloomberg, Yahoo, CBS News, and The Standard, according to Content Explorer.

With zero dollars successful paid promotion, it besides generated 38 cardinal integrated societal impressions and doubled mean engagement rates.

This is different large PR illustration of a marque capitalizing connected a film, and waiting for post-event treatment to prime up earlier newsjacking.

Following a veerryy arguable bath country successful the movie Saltburn, UK cosmetics retailer, Lush, jumped connected the accidental to insert their marque into a taste moment.

In February 2024, 3 months aft the film’s release, they released the “Saltbomb”, a peculiar edition, Saltburn-themed bath bomb.

Parodying immoderate of the film’s astir risqué moments, Lush didn’t clasp backmost with their merchandise marketing.

And we loved it.

The run led to 135 links, galore coming from precocious DR (Domain Rating) publications, driving real, tangible integrated postulation – including Global News, New York Times, Pop Sugar, and BBC.

Press sum really went supra and beyond this, due to the fact that Lush’s products are portion of a fewer steadfast affiliate programs – but affiliate links are a small trickier to track.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean.

The tract Allure wrote up a diagnostic portion connected the Lush bath bomb, but their affiliate nexus navigates to a third-party level earlier redirecting to Lush’s merchandise page.

For that reason, the nexus doesn’t amusement up successful Ahrefs’ Backlinks Report.

Instead, I recovered it by monitoring campaign-specific keywords successful Content Explorer.

Beyond property and affiliate publicity, the Lush PR run was a victor connected societal media.

The photography and merchandise descriptions made it cleanable for meme-ification, which added thousands of views and impressions.

It besides won large successful search, with planetary keyword measurement reaching 1.3K…

And the merchandise landing leafage earned up to 800 monthly integrated visits successful its first month.

Traffic has remained dependable since, averaging betwixt 500 - 600 monthly visits, contempt the merchandise having been archived – beauteous bully going for a spot of trendjacking.

Every year, Pinterest taps into their interior level hunt information to station their inclination forecasts successful what is known arsenic “Pinterest Predicts”.

Posting connected Pinterest For Business (the company’s commercialized arm), they categorize related high-growth searches, and delegate them caller inclination names similar “Eclectic grandpa”, “Bow stacking” oregon “Cafe core”.

I took a look astatine the Site Structure report, and recovered that Pinterest’s astir linked inclination was successful information the “Eclectic Grandpa” which – successful Pinterest’s words – is all about:

“Embracing ‘grandpa core’ and bringing eccentric and expressive elements for the ages to wardrobes. Think retro streetwear, chic cardigans and customised clothing. Because the coastal grandma aesthetic is truthful last year.”

To date, the inclination has earned citations from 98 abstracted domains.

A look astatine the Backlinks study revealed sum from Vogue, Elle, Who What Wear, New York Post, and Business Insider.

And it didn’t extremity there. The “Eclectic Grandpa” gets astir a bit, cropping up 340 times successful the articles I discovered via Content Explorer.

A sizeable fig of those DR 50+ mentions (150, to beryllium precise) went unlinked based connected Ahrefs’ Unlinked Mentions filter/export – links which could inactive beryllium claimed by the Pinterest team.

Given the acold reaching coverage, searches for “Eclectic Grandpa” keywords person changeable up successful the past year, increasing to 4.8K planetary hunt measurement (GSV).

By creating nexus magnet content, Pinterest has managed to drum up immense publicity – whether they pitched for it oregon not – making it a large illustration of a palmy PR campaign.

Real property marketplace, Zillow, surveyed 1,815 homeowners and recovered that those with little owe rates are doubly arsenic apt to enactment enactment vs selling their home.

By creating firsthand probe tackling an contented adjacent to their audience’s heart, Zillow earned 235 backlinks from the likes of Bloomberg, Yahoo, FoxBusiness, and Money.com.

Sites referenced the survey for aggregate reasons; not conscionable quoting 1 stat, but a full variety, arsenic evidenced successful the anchor substance of their backlinks.

LinkedIn tends to support their information nether fastener and key, but successful their Future of Work study they released proprietary insights connected the maturation of AI conversations connected the platform, positive the interaction of AI connected careers.

A large illustration of exclusive PR, LinkedIn’s study made a splash, landing 383 links successful Forbes, Microsoft, Harvard Business Review, and CNET.

Personal concern company, WalletHub, compared the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas, oregon MSAs, crossed 11 cardinal metrics.

Combining superior information with third-party sources similar the U.S. Census Bureau, GreatSchools.org, and Yelp, WalletHub created an interactive survey ranking the astir and slightest educated cities successful America.

This is an illustration of a PR run that doubles arsenic large contented marketing.

It snagged 604 unsocial backlinks from dense hitters similar Wikipedia, Forbes, Business Insider, Bloomberg, and Yahoo – arsenic good arsenic tons of authorities publications.

Location based PR campaigns are an particularly almighty signifier of PR, since they person some section and nationalist appeal.

Here’s Tom Chivers, PR Expert and Founder of Sabot, explaining wherefore localization truly works for nationalist relations campaigns – with a large further constituent made by Co-Founder of Journo Finder, Veronica Fletcher.

Krispy Kreme rode the question of Olympic involvement this twelvemonth by processing 2 peculiar variation doughnuts: “Go USA” and “Passport to Paris”.

As we’ve seen already, fashionable PR campaigns don’t ever neatly way backmost to the sources you’d expect them to.

Krispy Kreme earned lone 11 links to their USA doughnut property release, and 20 to their Paris doughnut motorboat announcement. Not precisely groundbreaking.

But erstwhile you filter for mentions of run keywords (e.g. “Go USA” and “Paris”) astatine the domain-level, you find a full batch much coverage; 95 links, to beryllium precise, from large publications similar Yahoo, USA Today, People, and the Food Network.

The peculiar variation doughnuts besides thrust a chill 45K monthly searches, according to the Matching Terms study successful Keywords Explorer.

This adjacent PR illustration is simply a run of aggregate parts. It began with a brace of McDonald’s themed Crocs, and has extended to a afloat blown footwear collection…

And a novelty product: McDonald’s blessed repast mini-crocs keyring.

The coordinated PR run has generated immense consciousness for some brands, but tracking each the fragmented assets is nary mean feat.

To get a amended thought of wide marque awareness, I opted alternatively to hunt for co-citations astatine the domain level.

Searching successful the Backlinks report, I applied filters for each marque sanction successful the other’s backlink profile.

McDonald’s earned 260 links for “Crocs” related content, but Crocs was the existent winner, landing 416 links for “McDonald’s” related property from media goliaths similar Business Insider, Fast Company, and Entrepreneur.

From studying the campaign’s idiosyncratic assets, I noticed thing interesting: societal posts person the quality to pull links.

Take for instance, this UGC post by Instagram nutrient account, Snackolater. It landed 24 backlinks aft sharing quality of the blessed repast mini-croc launch.

It had ne'er occurred to maine to way societal media posts for links, but you tin ne'er archer however a writer is going to notation your campaign, truthful it’s worthwhile mounting up a backlink alert for each your assets conscionable in case!

The maturation of marque searches is simply a existent testament to the occurrence of a PR campaign, and this collaboration decidedly delivers connected that front.

Audiences are searching for applicable McDonald’s + Croc based keywords a full of 37K times a period connected average, based connected information successful Keywords Explorer.

Duo Lingo leaned into their weird yet fantastic marque of selling with a hilarious superbowl advertisement featuring Duo, the brand’s somewhat unhinged owl character.

In 5 (wild) seconds, we witnesser the detonation of Duo’s butt, and the maturation of a mini Duo successful its place, accompanied by a reminder to bash our Duo Lingo lesson.

The advertisement originative was repurposed from a widget plan that went semi-viral – Duo Lingo knew it worked, truthful they built on it.

And successful a changeable of coordinated PR genius, they simultaneously sent retired a push-notification to app users arsenic soon arsenic the advertisement went live.

“We decided to brace the advertisement with a coordinated propulsion notification, which would deed learners’ phones close aft the commercialized aired, reinforcing the thought that Duo is ever watching 👀.”

The YouTube commercialized has earned 5M views and 130 links from Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and Indy100.

The Duo Lingo squad person written up a earnestly comic play-by-play of the PR run present – they speech astir everything from the lengths they went to to get the close “shine” connected Duo’s buttocks, to cautiously selecting the cleanable fart dependable effect. I urge speechmaking it, for a giggle if thing else.

How I recovered these PR run examples (and you can too)

I spent a batch of time:

• In Ahrefs Content Explorer searching for examples of emblematic PR run headlines
• Flicking done the backmost catalog of Campaign Inspiration, PR Week Campaigns, The Grapevine, and The PR Insider
• Snooping connected the Top Pages of marque websites to spot press/link magnets

There were truthful galore awesome examples of PR, but I narrowed it down to the ones that drove either property mentions, links, hunt volume, traffic, oregon each of the above.

Final thoughts

The champion PR campaigns aren’t conscionable astir links. They’re astir creating conversations, driving awareness, and making a lasting interaction connected your audience.

Here’s a speedy recap of immoderate of the apical takeaways:

• Time it right: Launch your campaigns erstwhile conversations peak
• Tap into unsocial data: Use exclusive insights to stand out
• Track holistically: Monitor links, mentions, searches, and social
• Rank and compare: Engage aggregate assemblage “tribes” done rankings
• Take a section angle: Analyze aggregate locations to triumph more press
• Collaborate creatively: Brand partnerships tin amplify your reach
• Repurpose winners: Turn palmy contented into caller campaigns

Success is predicated connected a run gathering its goal(s), and portion we don’t cognize precisely what these brands acceptable retired to achieve, their campaigns person enjoyed results that astir of america would beryllium beauteous happy with.

Hopefully they’ve fixed you immoderate inspiration for your adjacent project.