Looking for a cool publicity stunt?
Here’s one for schools, nonprofits and companies that need a little more publicity.
It goes like this. The boss issues a challenge, then agrees to do something outrageous if the challenge is met.
A coach, for example, tells his football team that if they win the first four games this year, he’ll run 10 laps around the football field in front of the entire student body.
Are you a sales manager trying to motivate your sales team? Tell them that if they surpass this month’s goals by at least 20 percent, you’ll cook each person on your team a gourmet dinner at their homes. I’m sure you can come up with far better examples.
I got the idea when I saw the photo of the Punk Principal in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Scroll about halfway down the page and check out the photo on the right side.
It shows Boca Raton High School Principal Geoff McKee getting a Mohawk after he had made a promise to students for their achievement in beating another school district in a Florida state assessment test.
When I worked as a newspaper editor, we’d often print photos like this one. But we’d use just a caption if there wasn’t enough other information to warrant an article.
What kind of challenge can your CEO, coach, president, executive director or other Big Cheese issue? If the media won’t cover the publicity stunt, take your own photos and submit them to newspapers and magazines and post them on the Internet. The ebook “How to Use Photos & Graphics in Your Publicity Campaign” shows you how to take your own photos that are media-ready.
It will save you hours of time and aggravation researching what kind of photo equipment to buy, and it will give you creative ideas for adding visuals to your publicity campaign. A recent study I saw by a PR firm showed that more than 90 percent of the journalists surveyed said a photo or graphic significantly improves your chances for coverage.