Top PR Campaigns of 2018

A crucial component of effective and powerful public relations is aligning your clients’ missions with current events and trends. By positioning your clients as changemakers of political action, resources in times of natural disaster, leaders in environmental preservation and so on, they not only have the opportunity to align with their audiences’ values, but also to gain widespread publicity and reach new audiences. Here’s an inspirational roundup of our favorite PR campaigns from 2018.

Burger King: WhoppHER

We saw countless corporations capitalize on 2018 as the year of female empowerment. After Saudi Arabia passed a law allowing women to drive, Burger King gave a free Whopper to every woman who drove through one of its UAE drive-throughs. The wrappers displayed, “Celebrating out driving women,” in both English and Arabic.

Photo credit: www.twitter.com/burgerking_uae

Anheuser-Busch: Turning Beer into Water

After a series of natural disasters across the United States, millions of Americans were left without sanitary drinking water. Anheuser-Busch took action by halting the production of Budweiser beer out of an entire brewery and switched the production capabilities to the purification and distribution of clean water to all of the impacted areas. Watch the promotional video here.

Bud Light: Victory Fridges

In an unprecedented PR tactic, Bud Light placed victory fridges in bars around Cleveland that were stocked with Bud Light beer. The refrigerators were to remain locked until the Cleveland Bears won a game during the 2018 football season. The victory fridges were trending across social media and Bud Light received coverage in top-tier media outlets.

Photo credit: www.theverdge.com

KFC: ‘FCK’ for KFC

KFC taught us all a thing or two about how to handle a PR crisis in 2018. KFC’s were forced to close across the UK after they ran out of fresh chicken due to issues with their distributor. KFC issued a public apology across social media channels and advertising platforms by swapping the letters in their logo to ‘FCK.” The fast food chain used humor to forgo the rather disastrous dilemma and actually grew brand loyalty through the comedic relief. See the news coverage here.