'Make it at Bushmills'

As part of our final year university assignment we are trying to develop our analytical and critical analysis skills so we had to chose a campaign that had won a Gold award in the CIPR Pride Awards 2010 and analyse it in terms of its objectives, strategy and whether it met these objectives. I chose to look at the Consumer Relations category for Northern Ireland and the campaign titled 'Make it at Bushmills'. The campaign was quite complex, operating over a number of different makets with a number of different tactics but I will try to break down the campaign and offer a brief analysis of why I believe it won a GOLD award. I would then like to get some feedback from some of you reading this blog and whether you believe the campaign was successful.

So, the Old Bushmills Distillery is based in Northern Ireland and Smarts PR agency were asked to create a campaign that would be succesful internationally in 2010, they wanted to create news, make people talk and engage Bushmills target audience.

Their answer was to create 'Make it at Bushmills' - a once in a lifetime oppurtunity for whiskey lovers around the world to win a months stay at the Old Bushmills Distillery on Ireland's spectacular north coast, working alongside the master distiller to create their own unique blend of irish whiskey, living in luxury accomodation, with £5,000 spending money.

They also wanted to establish Bushmills on Facebook and used facebook as one of the main focuses of the campaign helping to spread the word virally as well as using traditional types of media. For example entry for the competition had to be done solely through a dedicated Facebook App hosted on the page. The app was hosted on the Bushmills global facebook page and on three local market pages- Great Britain, South Africa and Bulgaria.

The Results

• They generated more than 2000 pieces of print, broadcast and media coverage in over 20 countries , in 14 languages just in the first 48 hours of launching the campaign.
• They created 115, 268, 122 OTS
• Bushmills global facebook page has over 36,000 fans
• Launch web video recieved 400,000 views
• ROI was £12 for every £1 spent on PR.
• Launched in 9 markets, 225% of target
• Media Coverage in 20+ countries, 500% above target

The campaign is now recognised as one of the most successful consumer campaigns in Diageo and used as best practice for a global PR initiative by one of the worlds largest FMCG companies.

I think the campaign does deserve it's GOLD award, I think it was innovative and they did something that had never been done before (opening up the distillery) which showed they understood their target audience and what they wanted. The use of facebook was a great way to use social media in a time where it is fast becoming the easiest and cheapest way to get free publicity. I have to say however that I am not sure the campaign is sustainable and with the budget being £51k to £100k I think they are going to have to try to develop the campaign to gain consumer interest again, unless they can afford to do the competition again next year??

I would be grateful if you could tell me what you thought of the campaign and whether you thought it was a success.

Below is a link to the global Bushmills facebook page!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/Bushmills1608

Ultimate Force- Is it ethical to kill?

We have been discussing some quite serious issues in our Ethics lecture recently and I thought I would get some further opinions on these issues.

One of the topics covered was whether it is ethical for the Police to use ultimate force i.e should they be able to shoot civilians dead? The outcome of the discussion was that in most situations it will be the circumstances that will determine whether this is necessary or not. But what if the circumstances prove to be wrong. I am sure you remember the case of Jean Charles de Menezes who was sadly shot dead in London as police believed him to be a danger to the public. This was in fact not the case, but it was too late, they had made their split second desicion. I am sure the police officers involved in this shooting will never forget the fact that they shot an innocent man dead, so how do you go about using your own descretion- as this is what police officers are asked to do in these kind of situations.

I am going to look at this from a slightly different angle than we did in our original discussion- asking police officers to make split second desicions between life and death-is this ethical?

Has PR gone too far?

Right, this is my first blog and I have attempted to write this about 1,000 times. Seriously, I am not even exaggerating. Most people that know me will know I am not normally one to mince my words, but because I want to create the right impression, I am struggling.

 In PR and life in general for that matter, you are constantly told first impressions count and as this is my first blog, I want people to get the right first impression of me. Do I start by writing about something highly intellectual that even I don't really know what I am waffling on about... people will think I am highly intelligent, praise me for my innovation and will never know I didn’t really have a clue what I was writing about, or do I write about something obscure and interesting and think ‘outside the box’ (like we are constantly told to do in PR) ...  people will then think I am destined to be in the PR industry and will be talking about ‘that blog’ for years to come.

Surely, this is just PR gone mad. Correct me if I am wrong but I thought a blog was supposed to be something that was written relatively quickly just to gain a reaction and provoke discussion. I am sure that I am not alone in this either, most of my other friends at university have had to write a blog and I am sure they have also sat there for hours deliberating about what to say and how to say it.

What I am trying to say is as PR people, are we so aware how important it is to manage reputation that we are becoming too obsessed by it? Is it infiltrating into our own lives?