Nokia’s use of storytelling makes them the PR winners this week

 26th March 2014    Good and Bad PR 
 Paarul Chand

Good and Bad PR

Nokia Lumia 1520 uses the story of ‘The guy who lost his girlfriend’, to promote itself!

Now this is great use of storytelling to promote the features of a phone. Instead of directly talking about the features of Nokia Lumia 1520’s HD recording abilities, the campaign narrates the story of a lovelorn Spanish man Antonio who has broken up with his Indian girlfriend Yamini. 



Antonio is seen watching videos of Yamini in a bid to, as the campaign says, “Relive your memories”.

Eager to get her back, Antonio, with a few helpful suggestions from the public, records various videos on his Nokia Lumia phablet to get her back. These include cooking her masala dosa, playing with kids and dancing a Bollywood number:

Those who come up with good tips stand to win a Nokia Lumia 1520.

Love the use of storytelling in this campaign.

Fox Traveller India gets zombies to take over photo booth to promote ‘The Walking Dead’

Probably inspired by the success of the brilliant Carrie coffee shop prank, Fox Traveller India scared up some great PR for its show ‘The Walking Dead’.

In a prank designed by digital agency Flying Cursor, unsuspecting college kids were pounced on by zombies as they crowded in to get their selfies clicked! Watch what happens:

Nat Geo also ran a Twitter contest asking questions around the prank video:


 

The show starts March 29^th on Fox Traveller.

A clever set of travel agents sell Election Tourism to India

A group of travel and tour operators from Gujarat, under the umbrella of Tourism Development Corporation Society, have come up with a smart strategy to use the coming general elections as a selling point to tourists!

Among the cities that are poised to become a popular destination is Varanasi, the constituency from which PM aspirant, Narendra Modi is standing.  According to the Economic Times: “Among the many visitors expected will be 32 British women, who will be arriving in Varanasi on 19 April to witness what has been touted as the Festival of Democracy.”
Ever since Modi’s candidature was announced, the tour operators say that enquiries for the ‘election tour packages’ for New Delhi-Varanasi have jumped from 150 to 800.

Welcome to the great Indian election tamasha – why should tour operators not hop on the opportunity?

Bad PR

Sharad Pawar advises the electorate to vote twice !

Uh oh, Sharad Pawar should have probably thought twice before speaking instead of advising people to vote twice. While addressing party workers in Navi Mumbai , Pawar gave this bit of ‘unusual’ voting advise –he told them to take advantage of the multi-phase election to cast their vote twice , once at home and the second time at their place of work!

The usually media savvy Pawar had to hastily retract his statement , saying it was said in a ‘lighter vein’.

The BJP didn’t think it was that funny and BJP party member Kirit Somalia has approached the Election Commission for action against Pawar and NCP under the Representation of People’s Act.

Pawar should probably keep away from such “jokes” for a while, even if it is the silly season for politics!

Have you seen any great or even bad PR?

Write to Paarul Chand at paarul@prmoment.in or tweet @PaarulC or @PRmomentIndia throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.