Top of the PR Pops: March Highlights

Pinch and a punch it’s the first of the month (tomorrow!) which means we’ve got another juicy PR Top Of The Pops for you!

March, what have you got for us...?

Tidal: The Tides Are Changing

Step aside, Spotify; Tidal is here.

At a press conference, yesterday, music’s mega-star, Jay-Z, relaunched Tidal, the streaming service he recently acquired as part of a $56 million dollar deal. And boy did he do it in style!

Backed by some of the industry’s biggest names (including Alicia Keys, Rihanna and Madonna) Jay-Z’s music-streaming service is set to “turn the tide and restore the value to music” – according to Jigga himself. So how is it different to Spotify?

It has Taylor Swift!!! (what more could you want?!)

Subscription based service (starting from $9.99 a month)

Higher quality audio files

Pays double the standard streaming royalties

It’ll be interesting to see how Tidal performs in comparison to Spotify in terms of subscriptions and revenue.

Meerkat: There’s A New Kat In Town

Unless you spent March living under a rock then you’ve probably heard the term “Meerkat” being bandied around. And this little social mongoose is causing a bit of a stir, dividing opinions amogst PRs, marketeers and social media managers.

What is it Meerkat? To break it down, it’s a video-streaming for iPhone and iPad which allows users to broadcast live video streams to their Twitter followers.

Read more about the controversy here: http://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/mynewsdesk/blog_posts/meerkat-the-lowdown

Make Your Face Funny

For this year’s Comic Relief, PRs and marketeers up and down the country were desperately trying to come up with clever campaigns to both align themselves with the charity as well as raise money.

The usual suspects – Sainsbury’s, Specsavers and TKMaxx – got involved with both instore and online campaigns, but our favourite was PG Tips’ who had their brand mascot, the aptly named “Monkey”, climb to the top of the Shard. His challenge was filmed and shared on the tea maker’s social channels and website.

What did we like about it? Not only was their idea outside the realms of the “normal” approach to charity fundraisers but it provided the company with plenty of material to use on their various online channels. And after all, 2015 is set to be the year of the story!

Oreo Eclipse

On 20th March 2015, millions took to their streets and gardens, armed with sunglasses and cullenders, to get a peek at the solar eclipse. Did they see anything through the smoggy skies above? Probably not. But that’s okay, Oreo had it covered…

Aligning themselves with a popular topic, Mondelez International created a tactical campaign for their biscuitty offspring, Oreo, which saw the brand eclipse The Sun newspaper and digital screens across the UK (by covering the paper in foil….yep). According to PHD, this was the biggest translucent cover print run, ever!

So there you have it, folks, our favourite PR moments from the merry month of March. We’re looking forward to checking in again with a reflection upon April Fools’ Day, the London Marathon and more….