10 February 2025
Which company do you admire for their PR?
It seems a simple question and one that you think you can answer without a second’s thought.
But then.
As you start go through all of the well-known companies who might spring to mind to actually think of a company that does good PR is not that easy.
Yes, we can all think of companies whose brand we admire and, maybe, some of the adverts they’ve done. But PR?
Well, let’s look at some of the world’s most successful or prominent brands.
Facebook/Meta (I can only think of negative stuff). Amazon? Not really. Tesla (I don’t think they even do marketing). X.com? You’re having a laugh.
OK, what about non-tech companies. Coca Cola? No. Virgin? Well just the Richard Branson stuff, but since he’s stopped flying around in hot air balloons, again, not really. McDonalds? A bit of sponsorship for grass roots football and when they started to put salad on their menus.
Oh, hang on. There have been a few PR stunts from the likes of Paddy Power, Spec Savers and Greggs. The cheeky chappie type stuff that goes with their brand. And there was that viral Oreo stuff around the Superbowl black out (did you know that was 12 years ago?)
But name a company that does PR consistently well - not just the every-so-often little gem.
I mean week after week, or month after month.
You can’t.
They may be doing it, but not in that high profile way that grabs people's attention. And that's the way of most PR. It's the everyday, lower profile stuff that's quietly working away, rather than the big fanfare stunts that people tend to think of as good PR.
It is good PR, but on its own, it's rarely done consistently enough to maintain a company's profile in the media.
The one company I do think makes quite a good fist of its PR is TikTok - quite ironic given that they are all about getting people onto their social media platform.
They often find their way onto the mainstream news pages with a TikTokker whose post has gone viral and landed them a recording contract or brought them some other good fortune.
I say ironic, because many voices (usually on social media) have been telling us for a while, now, that that legacy media is dead and social media is where you should be.
Of course, TikTok too wants you to be on their platform. However, when it comes to PR they aren’t restricting themselves to social media. Far from it.
And, to be fair, the coverage they get is pretty good.
Now, if it’s good enough for them, maybe it’s not that dead after all.
