An Idea A Day

PUBLIC RELATIONS PIGGYBACK YOUR STORY Jim Blythe

MUCH OF WHAT appears in the news is PR. Often major companies expend a great deal of money and effort to get their stories into print, and to alert the news media to what they are doing.

For the astute PR person, this can provide an opportunity to hijack the publicity and piggyback a PR campaign on the strength of it.

The idea

A large American cellphone company arranged a major PR campaign to publicize its launch of what was then the world’s smallest cellphone. A chain of restaurants cashed in on this by announcing a ban on all cellphones in its establishments, on the grounds that they annoy ...