10 Unforgettable PR Campaigns

By John Unger

A great PR campaign can accomplish many things. It can restore the damaged reputation of a celebrity who was caught doing some misdeed; it can save a company from ruin; it can make a fledgling company a huge success. A great PR campaign can even salvage a political campaign.

In the last 100-plus years, there have been multiple PR campaigns that made a huge impact, and that are still remembered today. Here are ten of the greatest PR campaign of all time.

I Love New York

The "I Love (Heart) New York" campaign began in the 1970s. At the time, New York City was in the midst of a serious economic downslide. I Love New York was conceived in an effort to change the reputation of the city from a crime-ridden slum to a welcoming place to visit and live. Clearly this marketing campaign was a success, as the I Love New York slogan still appears on shirts, buttons, and other merchandise more than four decades later.

The Coca-Cola War Effort

Nothing helps a PR campaign more than getting an endorsement from Uncle Sam. In 1941, Coca-Cola teamed up with the war department to start a campaign that promised every soldier a Coke for a nickel regardless of the cost to The Coca-Cola Company. To this day, the image of a soldier in uniform enjoying an ice-cold bottle of Coke is a familiar one.

Got Milk?

The Got Milk? campaign began in California in the early nineties. The point of the campaign was to increase the amount of milk that was consumed by Californians. Later, the campaign was taken nationwide by dairy farmers and milk producers alike. The gist of the campaign was that well-known public figures would appear in advertisements sporting milk mustaches and give brief statements on how drinking milk was good for them.

The first television spot in this PR campaign featured a poor soul who lost his chance at winning a radio trivia contest when he couldn't give an answer because he had no milk to wash down his peanut butter sandwich. Got Milk? successfully combined celebrity and humor to get the intended message out to the masses.

Give a Hoot! Don't Pollute!

This friendly admonishment was first uttered by Woodsy Owl to the American public in 1971. The campaign was formed as a way to encourage children, along with their parents, to value nature and refrain from littering. Today, even though he has undergone a significant makeover and has a different catchphrase, Woodsy is still an important part of the United States Forest Service's effort to encourage American kids to care about the environment.

Bacon and Eggs

Five out of six doctors agree! If you've ever heard that phrase, you can thank one Edward Bernays. Even though it is a staple breakfast combination now, bacon and eggs were not a common breakfast item prior to the 1920s. What changed things?

Bernays sent a survey to doctors in an effort to get them to endorse the idea that eating bacon and eggs first thing in the morning would be filling and would provide plenty of morning energy. When he received the endorsement of the majority of doctors he surveyed, Bernays used that information as a means to boost the sale of eggs. Clearly his idea took off, as bacon and eggs are two of the first items that come to mind when one thinks of breakfast foods.

The Press Release

In the early part of the 20th century, a horrific train crash caused the deaths of more than 50 people. One man, Ivy Lee, convinced the train company that they should release the facts surrounding the tragedy to the public before anybody else did.

The executives at the train company did just that. This resulted in the creation of the press release. It also changed the policies of companies everywhere, when they realized that full disclosure and accountability in the aftermath of a tragedy is much better received than denial or secrecy.

@2010Zenyatta

In 2010, the folks in charge of promoting the Breeder's Cup realized that they needed to boost interest in horse racing. So, what did they do? They gave champion racehorse Zenyatta a twitter handle of course! In short order, @2010Zenyatta had gained over a thousand followers. Did the campaign work? It seems as if it did. Ticket sales to the event increased by several thousand over the previous year.

Muppet Cupcakes

In 2012, promoters of The Muppets movie wanted to increase ticket sales. Obvious actions to take might have been to purchase more television advertising spots or to arrange to have the movie's trailer shown more frequently.

The promoters took a different tack. They simply mailed Muppet cupcakes to prolific Twitter users, one of whom was British actor Stephen Fry. It worked. Mr. Fry and others tweeted about the campaign, and others were encouraged to go see the movie.

Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires

This campaign was kicked off in the 1940s as a way to encourage campers to carefully manage and extinguish their campfires. The campaign is still going strong today, even though the phrase is now, “Only you can prevent wildfires.”

Smokey the Bear was initially conceived as a fictional mascot; however, in the mid-1950s, a small black bear who had been burned was rescued from a forest fire and nursed back to health. The young bear was dubbed Smokey, and became a living symbol of the forest fire prevention campaign.

Jack's Back

In 1980, fast-food restaurant chain Jack in the Box made the now infamous decision to rebrand the company. Marketing executives decided to give the company a more upscale image. To accomplish this, they revamped the menu to include “gourmet” items and released a campaign where the clown that had long been the restaurant's symbol was unceremoniously blown to smithereens.

The powers that be at Jack in the Box took this rebranding effort so far that they even renamed the chain “Monterey Jack's” for a short period of time. The marketing effort was a complete flop. Fortunately, the PR campaign that followed was not. A series of commercials was released highlighting Jack's return to power at the company. Not only did the campaign make the general public forget about the previous marketing flop, it also restored the company's reputation after a tragic E. coli outbreak.