User:ColinAndersonUofO/Public Relations

Publicity Stunts
Publicity stunts aim to earn media and public attention to a cause, product, or service. The stunt can be anything that draws attention, such as baking a huge pizza or riding a bike backwards for 10 miles, but the a stunt's connection to the idea or product it seeks to promote, the more likely it is to succeed.

Contemporary consumer audiences are less positively receptive to disruption, but new tools such as live streaming have been employed to create buzz without disrupting public spaces.

Influencers
Influencers are an emerging public relations and marketing tool spanning social networking sites, blogs, podcasts, and other community-driven platforms, in which organizations pay prominent influencers to use and promote their product or service. In a sense, the influencer becomes a temporary de facto spokesperson for the product or service, promoting its value or messaging across an agreed upon number of social media posts, video mentions, or other highlights. It is estimated that the growing influencer industry is worth over $13 billion USD as of 2021. Use cases include government messaging, promotion of consumer goods, and public interest causes.

Public relations professionals have developed metrics by which to score the relevancy, impact, and other measures of how an influencer may help them reach their target audiences. Through these metrics, influencers can be divided into mega- and micro-influencers. Mega-influencers are typically famous, with large follower counts on social media, providing large reach but a smaller opportunity to engage their communities on a personal level. Micro-influencers tend to have smaller follower counts, but usually occupy an industry niche in which they are viewed as an expert, allowing for greater personal engagement through their social channels.

Influencers in the United States
In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission warned over 90 letters warning influencers that they must disclose brand relationships in a "clear' and "conspicuous" manner. The FTC went on to suggest that beginning social media posts with "#ad" would be an effective way of disclosing a relationship with a marketer, and no influencer should make a claim that the marketer could not themselves legally make.

Examples of influencer campaigns
In 2018, EduBirdie ran an influencer campaign on YouTube targeting school-aged children with their essay writing services. YouTube influencers popular with the demographic promoted the service, garnering 700 million views across videos associated with the campaign. Ultimately, hundreds of these videos were removed by YouTube because the influencer campaign violated their academic aid policy, which prohibits advertising academic aids.

The Public Health Agency of Canada employed an influencer campaign in 2018 to bring public attention to the dangers of opioid use to reach audiences that typically "tune-out" government messaging. The effort was staged in response to the country's rising opioid-related overdose mortality.

Earned Media examples
In 2018, the Canadian Down Syndrome Society launched an awareness campaign that claimed they wanted those with down syndrome added to the endangered species list. The CDSS cited a reduction in the population of those with down syndrome and a decrease in available support. The “edgy” campaign, as described by a member of the CDSS’s board of directors, garnered widespread media attention discussing both the quality of care available for those with down syndrome, and the content of the campaign comparing, as some viewed it, individuals with down syndrome to animals. Throughout the discussions on the fairness, validity, and authenticity of the campaign, was earning considerable media coverage.