Articles

What's the point of Stunts? - Jim Hawker, Threepipe

Jim Hawker is co-founder of Threepipe

Why is a co-founder of a consumer PR agency questioning the importance of stunts? Strange when
you think that stunts are what have made some consumer agencies famous. Who can forget some of
the classics over the years such as.....And that is my point - I was reading through a blog the other
day which listed the top 50 stunts of all time, most of which were fairly recent but very forgettable.

Consumer PR agencies should be in the business of changing behaviours and brand perceptions and
my increasing feeling is that isolated stunts do neither. There may be a quick hit, a quick sales uplift
but it is short lived and short impact. Where I would meander from this opinion is looking at a brand
like Travelodge which for the past couple of years has built a sustained press office campaign of
quirky picture stories and surveys which have I feel lead to change of brand perception for the hotel
group.

Agencies can rarely guarantee any results. We try our best to give clients confidence and to show
case studies of previous work but in this game there are no guarantees. With budgets becoming
tighter and the need to prove yourself as an agency partner that can deliver sustained business
value, has the age of the stunt passed us by?

Personally I get a lot more satisfaction in building campaigns which over the course of months and
not hours engage a far more targeted audience with deeper meaning which has a much better
chance of resonating than a picture in a tabloid.

Looking through that top 50 which you barely remember, you wonder how many millions of pounds
were spent on stunts that never made that long list. How much resource was wasted in the hope
that a picture editor was tickled enough to select your image out of a hundred he received that hour.
If I were a client I would be looking for an agency that worked harder over a sustained period of time
to deliver not one opportunity, but multiple opportunities.

Don't get me wrong. I think some brands need a stunt approach but these are in the minority.
Campaigns deliver much more and don't necessarily cost as much. They do however require a more
thoughtful approach but the results are worth the greater effort.
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