Stapler in Jell-O, What’s Not to Like?

Our Associate Creative Director, Oli Miller, was asked by PR Week to cast his critical eye over the PR industry’s creative hits of the week and, of course, he duly obliged.

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To undersell it a little, it’s been a tricky week for PR and creative comms.

The anniversary of the first lockdown is something many will feel is best to avoid, for fear of looking like they’re celebrating such a grim milestone. But that’s not to say some haven’t taken the opportunity to get us thinking about something else – which is clearly welcome if it’s your turn to write the Creative Hits & Misses column.

Thoughts below.

HITS
Jell-O & The Office
Let’s start with this absolute winner.

To mark a year without offices and the 16th anniversary of The Office’s brilliant NBC spinoff, Jell-O has given consumers the opportunity and the tools to recreate one of The Office’s most iconic scenes from home.

Jell-O is giving away a limited edition “Stapler Mold Prank Kit” that includes a step-by-step guide, a stapler-shape mould, five boxes of Jell-O and $60 (to potentially cover the cost of a series subscription).

The campaign has proved so popular that the Jell-O micro-site was overloaded this week by eager fans.

What’s not to like?

Nike Maternity Activewear
It’s important that before talking about how good this is, we recognise how it came about (see Allyson Felix’s tweets for additional detail). Nike has historically been less than perfect on its maternity record with elite athletes.

This campaign dropped on Mother’s Day (in the UK) and celebrates mothers and mothers-to-be in typical Nike fashion, beautifully shot and emotive, right down to the little swoosh.

What’s really important, and something Nike will have recognised itself, is that this gives it an extra level of accountability to the athletes it supports. A show of solidarity that its pregnant athletes are still its athletes.

Elon Musk: The Brand
Whatever you think of Elon Musk, he never misses an opportunity to raise his own profile.

This week as well as naming himself the ‘Technoking’ of Tesla, he also grabbed a hold of the NFT juggernaut with both hands.

NFTs are big news right now and brands are starting to take notice (see Taco Bell, Pringles etc.) and Elon wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass him by, creating and turning down over a million dollars for his own, genuinely amusing, Cryptoart. The tweet featuring a song about NFTs, sold as an NFT features techno and heavy nods to Doge and Reddit.

(Sidenote, apologies to the Pangolin team for boring them time and time again about how “interesting” NFTs are.)