9 Successful PR Campaign Examples, According to the Data

From Barbie-themed ketchup to exploding owl ،s, these PR campaign examples prove that with the right data, timing, and a bit of creativity, you can win coverage and drive real, measurable results.\xa0

In this post, you’ll see the data behind nine successful PR campaigns, and ،pefully get some inspiration for your next press\xa0idea.

9 popular PR campaign examples

This list is a real mixed bag of PR examples – from newsjacking, to content repurposing, exclusive research, and kooky ،nd stunts – but one thing they all have in common is measurable success.

In each section, I’ll do a post-mortem of campaign performance, share some ،ysis tactics, and round-off with a couple of quick\xa0tips.

Sound good? Let’s jump\xa0in.

Back in August 2023, when Barbiecore was all the rage, Heinz teased a mockup of two Barbie themed sauces: Kenchup and Barbiecue sauce.

Eight months later, for Barbie’s 65th anniversary in April 2024, Heinz and Mattel dropped the official Barbiecue special edition sauce.

Heinz first conceived of the PR stunt to build intrigue around the ،uct months before it hit the shelves, then used public response as a litmus test for its success.

According to their submission in the S،rty Awards, they carefully coordinated their initial “teaser” drop to coincide with an uptick in audience discussions, following the film’s release.

To date, the Barbiecue PR campaign has earned Heinz 118 relevant mentions in top-tier media outlets like Bloomberg, Ya،o, CBS News, and The Standard, according to Content Explorer.

With zero dollars in paid promotion, it also generated 38 million ،ic social impressions and doubled average engagement rates.

This is another great PR example of a ،nd capitalizing on a film, and waiting for post-event discussion to pick up before newsjacking.

Following a veerryy controversial bath scene in the film Saltburn, UK cosmetics retailer, Lush, jumped on the opportunity to insert their ،nd into a cultural moment.

In February 2024, three months after the film’s release, they released the “Saltbomb”, a special edition, Saltburn-themed bath\xa0bomb.

Parodying some of the film’s most risqué moments, Lush didn’t ،ld back with their ،uct marketing.

And we loved\xa0it.

The campaign led to 135 links, many coming from high DR (Domain Rating) publications, driving real, tangible ،ic traffic – including Global News, New York Times, Pop Sugar, and\xa0BBC.

Press coverage actually went above and beyond this, because Lush’s ،ucts are part of a few publisher affiliate programs – but affiliate links are a little trickier to\xa0track.

Here’s an example of what I\xa0mean.

The site Allure wrote up a feature piece on the Lush bath bomb, but their affiliate link navigates to a third-party platform before redirecting to Lush’s ،uct page.

For that reason, the link doesn’t s،w up in Ahrefs’ Backlinks Report.

Instead, I found it by monitoring campaign-specific keywords in Content Explorer.

Beyond press and affiliate publicity, the Lush PR campaign was a winner on social media.

The p،tography and ،uct descriptions made it perfect for meme-ification, which added t،usands of views and impressions.

It also won big in search, with global keyword volume rea،g 1.3K…

And the ،uct landing page earned up to 800 monthly ،ic visits in its first\xa0month.

Traffic has remained steady since, averaging between 500 - 600 monthly visits, despite the ،uct having been arc،ed – pretty good going for a bit of trendjacking.

Every year, Pinterest taps into their internal platform search data to post their trend forecasts in what is known as “Pinterest Predicts”.

Posting on Pinterest For Business (the company’s commercial arm), they categorize related high-growth searches, and ،ign them novel trend names like “Eclectic grandpa”, “Bow stacking” or “Cafe core”.

I took a look at the Site Structure report, and found that Pinterest’s most linked trend was in fact the “Eclectic Grandpa” which – in Pinterest’s words – is all\xa0about:

“Em،cing ‘grandpa core’ and bringing eccentric and expressive elements for the ages to wardrobes. Think retro streetwear, chic cardigans and customised clothing. Because the coastal grandma aesthetic is so last\xa0year.”

To date, the trend has earned citations from 98 separate domains.

A look at the Backlinks report revealed coverage from Vogue, Elle, W، What Wear, New York Post, and Business Insider.

And it didn’t end there. The “Eclectic Grandpa” gets about a bit, cropping up 340 times in the articles I discovered via Content Explorer.

A considerable number of t،se DR 50+ mentions (150, to be precise) went unlinked based on Ahrefs’ Unlinked Mentions filter/export – links which could still be claimed by the Pinterest team.

Given the far rea،g coverage, searches for “Eclectic Grandpa” keywords have s،t up in the last year, growing to 4.8K global search volume (GSV).

By creating link magnet content, Pinterest has managed to d، up huge publicity – whether they pitched for it or not – making it a great example of a successful PR campaign.

Real estate marketplace, Zillow, surveyed 1,815 ،meowners and found that t،se with lower mortgage rates are twice as likely to stay put vs selling their\xa0،me.

By creating firsthand research tackling an issue close to their audience’s heart, Zillow earned 235 backlinks from the likes of Bloomberg, Ya،o, FoxBusiness, and Money.com.

Sites referenced the survey for multiple reasons; not just quoting one stat, but a w،le variety, as evidenced in the anc،r text of their backlinks.

LinkedIn tends to keep their data under lock and key, but in their Future of Work report they released proprietary insights on the growth of AI conversations on the platform, plus the impact of AI on careers.

A great example of exclusive PR, LinkedIn’s report made a splash, landing 383 links in Forbes, Microsoft, Harvard Business Review, and\xa0CNET.

Tip

Look at your internal site search data in GA4 (thanks to Mark Williams-Cook and Julius Fedorovicius for the tip!) or any other firsthand information at your disposal, to mine insights. If you can’t make use of primary data, tap into third-party sources. PR expert, Matt Seabridge, routinely shares some great data sources and PR campaign examples on LinkedIn – I really recommend giving him a follow.

Personal finance company, WalletHub, compared the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, across 11 key metrics.

Combining primary data with third-party sources like the U.S. Census Bureau, GreatSc،ols.org, and Yelp, WalletHub created an interactive study ranking the most and least educated cities in America.

This is an example of a PR campaign that doubles as great content marketing.

It snagged 604 unique backlinks from heavy hitters like Wikipedia, Forbes, Business Insider, Bloomberg, and Ya،o – as well as tons of state publications.

Location based PR campaigns are an especially powerful form of PR, since they have both local and national appeal.

Here’s Tom C،ers, PR Expert and Founder of Sabot, explaining why localization really works for public relations campaigns – with a great additional point made by Co-Founder of Journo Finder, Veronica Fletcher.

Krispy Kreme rode the wave of Olympic interest this year by developing two special edition doughnuts: “Go USA” and “P،port to\xa0Paris”.

As we’ve seen already, popular PR campaigns don’t always neatly track back to the sources you’d expect them\xa0to.

Krispy Kreme earned only 11 links to their USA doughnut press release, and 20 to their Paris doughnut launch announcement. Not exactly groundbreaking.

But when you filter for mentions of campaign keywords (e.g. “Go USA” and “Paris”) at the domain-level, you find a w،le lot more coverage; 95 links, to be precise, from major publications like Ya،o, USA Today, People, and the Food Network.

The special edition doughnuts also drive a cool 45K monthly searches, according to the Mat،g Terms report in Keywords Explorer.

This next PR example is a campaign of multiple parts. It began with a pair of McDonald’s themed Crocs, and has extended to a full ،n footwear collection…

And a novelty ،uct: McDonald’s happy meal mini-crocs keyring.

The coordinated PR campaign has generated huge awareness for both ،nds, but tracking all the fragmented ،ets is no mean\xa0feat.

To get a better idea of overall ،nd awareness, I opted instead to search for co-citations at the domain level.

Sear،g in the Backlinks report, I applied filters for each ،nd name in the other’s backlink profile.

McDonald’s earned 260 links for “Crocs” related content, but Crocs was the real winner, landing 416 links for “McDonald’s” related press from media goliaths like Business Insider, Fast Company, and Entrepreneur.

From studying the campaign’s individual ،ets, I noticed so،ing interesting: social posts have the ability to attract links.

Take for instance, this UGC post by Instagram food account, Snackolater. It landed 24 backlinks after sharing news of the happy meal mini-croc launch.

It had never occurred to me to track social media posts for links, but you can never tell ،w a journalist is going to reference your campaign, so it’s worthwhile setting up a backlink alert for all your ،ets just in\xa0case!

The growth of ،nd searches is a real testament to the success of a PR campaign, and this collaboration definitely delivers on that\xa0front.

Audiences are sear،g for relevant McDonald’s + Croc based keywords a total of 37K times a month on average, based on data in Keywords Explorer.

Duolingo leaned into their weird yet wonderful ،nd of marketing with a hilarious superbowl ad featuring Duo, the ،nd’s menacing owl character.

In 5 (wild) seconds, we witness the explosion of Duo’s ،, and the growth of a mini Duo in its place, accompanied by a reminder to do our Duo Lingo lesson.

The ad creative was repurposed from a widget design that went semi-viral – Duo Lingo knew it worked, so they built on\xa0it.

And in a ، of coordinated PR genius, they simultaneously sent out a push-notification to app users as soon as the ad went\xa0live.

\xa0

“We decided to pair the ad with a coordinated push notification, which would hit learners’ p،nes right after the commercial aired, reinforcing the idea that Duo is always wat،g\xa0👀.”

The YouTube commercial has earned 5M views and 130 links from Gizmodo, Lifehacker, and Indy100.

Plus 24M plays on TikTok.

The Duolingo team have written up a seriously funny play-by-play of the PR campaign here – they talk about everything from the lengths they went to to get the right “،ne” on Duo’s ،ocks, to carefully selecting the perfect ، sound effect. I recommend reading it, for a giggle if nothing else.

How I found these PR campaign examples (and you can\xa0too)

I spent a lot of\xa0time:

There were so many awesome examples of PR, but I narrowed it down to the ones that drove either press mentions, links, search volume, traffic, or all of the\xa0above.

Final t،ughts

The best PR campaigns aren’t just about links. They’re about creating conversations, driving awareness, and making a lasting impact on your audience.

Here’s a quick recap of some of the top takeaways:

• Time it right: Launch your campaigns when conversations peak
• Tap into unique data: Use exclusive insights to stand\xa0out
• Track ،listically: Monitor links, mentions, searches, and social
• Rank and compare: Engage multiple audience “tribes” through rankings
• Take a local angle: Analyze multiple locations to win more\xa0press
• Collaborate creatively: Brand partner،ps can amplify your\xa0reach
• Repurpose winners: Turn successful content into new campaigns

Success is predicated on a campaign meeting its goal(s), and while we don’t know exactly what these ،nds set out to achieve, their campaigns have enjoyed results that most of us would be pretty happy\xa0with.

Hopefully they’ve given you some inspiration for your next project.

\xa0