Letting The Media Do Your Marketing For You

There are tons of ways the media can help your brand reach much more eyes than you expected in some pretty creative ways, and it’s important to be cognizant of the ways it can truly boost your product or service. It’s important for your brand to always speak to its use, values, and general voice but there are times you can also get a little creative to stir up some interest as well.

A great example of this was KFC latest conversation-starter, a chicken scented sunscreen they claim “sold out” in mere hours. Plenty of news outlets picked up the story that ended up being a publicity stunt in the end. You don’t have to go to these lengths per se, but a little bit of creative marketing can go quite a long way in getting picked up by news sites and creating a viral story for your brand.

KFC ended up giving away only 3000 bottles of the sunscreen as freebies, but the free publicity they gained was priceless. It’s important to understand the ways that the media is always on the lookout for new and exciting content, and doing something a little outside the box can go a long way. This is an especially good idea if your brand already has somewhat of a buzz and the “stunt” is in line with the type of things your brand would really do.

Traditional Media

There are tons of news outlets that are more than willing to pick up stories, especially if they’re associated with larger brands doing interesting things. Be sure to have your messaging and other forms of online advertising in perfect order before diving in to something like this. It’s also important to think about what the outcome is that you’re looking for. Are you doing it for overall brand awareness? The promote a new product or specific service?  Make sure this is clear so that when news outlets pick it up, there’s a consistent call to action whether they realize it or not.

Social Media

Inevitably, social media will pick up on these stories once they’re being shared across channels like Facebook and Twitter. This will generate even more conversations and traffic around it, and lead users back to the plethora or traditional news media sites writing about it. This type of exposure will help the story to go even further viral than just traditional media would, so be aware of the power of these social channels.

Follow Up Stories

If and when people start to figure out that your creative approach was done in a bid for publicity, it will create follow up stories that will allow you to completely control the narrative. Depending on how big it gets and how well it was executed, these same news outlets will want to reach to said brand directly to get a full story behind its inception. At that point, you’ll be able to explain all of that as well as your messaging or purpose across in the process.