Public Relations Examples: What Top Brands Get Right
TL;DR The brands that win at PR aren’t the ones with the slickest messaging — they’re the ones with the clearest point of view. The throughline is conviction: whether managing a crisis (Tylenol), entering a cultural debate (Nike, Airbnb) or reframing an entire category (Dove), brands earn attention by standing for something specific at the right moment.
In 2011, Patagonia took out a full-page Black Friday ad in the New York Times with a surprising message for consumers: “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” The contradiction was the point, and the story practically pitched itself.
Coverage from this public relations campaign spread far beyond the business press, reaching outlets that rarely touched outdoor apparel. More important, it gave sustainability-minded Patagonia something tougher to manufacture than a product: a public identity.
The best PR campaigns tend to share a few traits: a bold or counterintuitive idea, sharp cultural timing and a story authentic enough that journalists want to tell it.
What Makes Great PR Campaigns Work?
The Patagonia story shows the core difference between public relations and advertising: advertising is space you buy, while PR is attention you earn. And earned coverage carries something paid placement never can — credibility. Readers know the difference between a story a brand paid to place and one a journalist chose to tell. With 70% of people preferring to learn about products through editorial content rather than traditional ads, organic storytelling builds brand equity that compounds in ways paid efforts rarely do.
The best PR campaigns tend to share a few traits: a bold or counterintuitive idea, sharp cultural timing and a story authentic enough that journalists want to tell it. And while Patagonia had the advantage of a strong existing mission, you don’t need a decade of brand-building to pull this off. The playbook is more accessible than it looks, whether you’re a startup finding your voice or an established company trying to earn back attention.
Here are five other brands that got PR right — and what you can take from each.
It’s only a crazy dream until you do it. Just do it. https://t.co/TT7CzM4RPt pic.twitter.com/XJXzBr2yw5
— Nike (@Nike) February 23, 2019
Nike Reclaims Its Relevance
The situation: Nike dominated athletic apparel by 2018, but it faced a cultural relevance problem. A new generation of consumers was holding brands to a higher standard, expecting them to take meaningful stands on social issues, not just sell products.
The challenge: Reasserting credibility among younger, values-driven consumers while managing the inevitable backlash from a deeply polarized public.
The PR strategy: Nike made a calculated bet by aligning with Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who had become a lightning rod for kneeling during the national anthem. Rather than avoiding controversy, the brand leaned into it, using Kaepernick as the face of its Dream Crazy campaign and the tagline “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.”
The outcome: Dream Crazy repositioned Nike as a cultural institution willing to take a side. By anchoring the campaign to one of the most debated figures in American sports, the brand inserted itself into a conversation much bigger than advertising. A vocal boycott only amplified the coverage, keeping Nike at the center of a national debate for weeks — and driving a total of $163 million in earned media over the campaign’s lifetime.
Key takeaway: The instinct in PR is to protect and avoid risk, but in a polarized environment, staying silent carries its own reputational cost.
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott repositioned the workflow platform for the AI era
ServiceNow Reframes the Enterprise AI Conversation
The situation: As enterprise AI took off in 2023, model builders like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic dominated the narrative. The focus was on infrastructure and technical breakthroughs, leaving a gap around how AI would deliver real business value inside businesses.
The challenge: How could ServiceNow — a workflow platform, not a model provider — stay relevant and shape the AI conversation rather than be overshadowed by Big Tech?
The PR strategy: CEO Bill McDermott leveraged executive thought leadership to consistently reframe AI as a business productivity story across earnings calls, media interviews, keynote speeches and LinkedIn posts. Tying the technology to workflows, outcomes and enterprise ROI, he positioned ServiceNow as the orchestration layer or “control tower” for AI business transformation.
The outcome: ServiceNow became a central voice in enterprise AI, frequently cited in discussions about deployment and ROI. Analysts and media adopted McDermott’s framing, boosting investor confidence and product adoption.
Key takeaway: Leveraging executive thought leadership to share a clear, repeated narrative — delivered across every major channel — can reposition a company within a fast-moving tech conversation.
Dove Sells Soap by Refusing to Sell Beauty
The situation: In 2004, Dove was a functional soap brand lost in a crowded personal care market. The beauty industry dealt almost exclusively in aspirational, heavily retouched imagery, and Dove had no compelling story to set itself apart.
The challenge: Connecting emotionally with women in a category built on exploiting insecurity, without the luxury of a prestige price point or a fashion-world halo.
The PR strategy: Dove reframed the conversation entirely. Armed with research showing that only 2% of women considered themselves beautiful, the brand positioned itself as a champion of self-esteem. Its Real Beauty campaign replaced models with real women of varying ages, sizes and ethnicities. Dove’s 2006 short film “Evolution” — exposing the artifice behind conventional beauty advertising — spread globally before going viral was a recognized metric.
The outcome: “Real Beauty Sketches,” released in 2013, demonstrated how much runway the original idea still had, becoming the most-viewed online video ad of all time less than a month after its launch. Real Beauty remains the benchmark case study in earned media efficiency, still generating coverage, academic citations and industry references without additional investment.
Key takeaway: There’s a meaningful difference between simply selling a product and championing a point of view.
Johnson & Johnson CEO James Burke moved fast to rescue Tylenol’s reputation (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Tylenol Turns a Crisis Into a Case Study
The situation: Tylenol’s reputation took a nosedive in 1982, thanks to a consumer safety incident where seven people in Chicago died after taking capsules laced with potassium cyanide. What began as a local tragedy quickly spiraled into a national PR disaster.
The challenge: With no established playbook for handling a crisis of this scale, Tylenol maker Johnson & Johnson had to restore public trust.
The PR strategy: The backbone of J&J’s strategy was transparency and quick action. CEO James Burke ordered a nationwide recall before regulators required it, pulled all advertising, and communicated openly with the media and the public. Burke also led the development of tamper-evident packaging ahead of Tylenol’s relaunch.
The outcome: This campaign helped salvage Tylenol’s reputation from the scrap heap, but it did much more. As a result of Burke’s swift response, the press stopped hounding the brand and began holding it up as a model of corporate responsibility. Decades later, the case is still taught as the gold standard of crisis communications.
Key takeaway: Speed matters, and strategic transparency is an advantage in a crisis.
Acceptance starts with all of us. #weaccept pic.twitter.com/btgqyYHVTK
— Airbnb (@Airbnb) February 6, 2017
Airbnb Takes a Stand on Values
The situation: When President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting travel from several majority-Muslim countries in January 2017, social media quickly filled with stories of travelers stranded at airports. Airbnb, a platform built on the idea that anyone can belong anywhere, found itself operating in a world loudly debating the opposite — while also facing its own unresolved accusations that hosts were rejecting guests based on race.
The challenge: How do you respond to a fast-moving political crisis in a way that feels authentic rather than opportunistic, and do it quickly enough to be relevant?
The PR strategy: Within days of the executive order, Airbnb ran a Super Bowl ad built around a single message: “We Accept.” The campaign committed to providing short-term housing for refugees and displaced travelers. By moving fast, Airbnb jumped into the peak of the news cycle rather than arriving late to a conversation that had moved on.
The outcome: The campaign landed in newsrooms at the moment journalists were already covering the travel ban. #WeAccept became the top advertiser hashtag on Twitter during the Super Bowl, generating more tweets in the first half of the game than any other brand in the broadcast. Total earned impressions reached 87 million, with 85% positive. Airbnb became a reference point in the wider cultural debate, cited alongside activists and institutions rather than other advertisers.
Key takeaway: When a cultural crisis intersects with what your brand genuinely stands for, acting within the moment can turn a values statement into a news story.
How PR Can work For You
Having a strong point of view isn’t enough. In today’s crowded media landscape, even the most compelling brands and boldest ideas get overlooked without the right PR strategy to amplify them — and earning media placements is harder than ever.
That’s why it helps to work with an agency that knows the landscape and can position you — and your brand — as the story journalists actually want to cover.
To learn more about building credibility with earned media, read this.
FAQ
What is public relations?
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing how an organization communicates with the public, the media and other key audiences to shape perception and build reputation.
How is PR different from advertising?
Advertising is paid media where the client controls the message. PR often earns media coverage via relationships and storytelling.
What are the eight types of PR?
Eight types of PR are media relations, strategic communications, CEO PR, crisis management, corporate communications, government relations, investor relations and social media relations.
What skills do you need for PR?
Core PR skills include communication (written and spoken), relationship-building, storytelling, media savvy, strategic thinking, research, crisis management and adaptability.
How do you measure PR success?
Some common PR metrics are media coverage, impressions and share of voice. They also include message pull-through — whether your key messages appear in coverage. Another key metric is sentiment analysis: tracked over time, is coverage positive, negative or neutral?
Curious How Your Personal Brand as a CEO or Executive Impacts Your Business?
We specialize in helping executives put their best foot forward. If you'd like to see how effective your executive brand is at driving results, share your email address, and we'll send you an Executive Brand Report Card self-assessment like this.
