A tank made out of egg boxes makes great PR for Help for Heroes and Fourth Day

Sometimes, there’s a pretty solid argument that says, if you can find a great pun, work out the PR idea that might deliver it and you’ve probably got the makings of a great campaign.

The "Eggs for Soldiers" campaign that is aming to raise money for Help the Heroes involved two such lovely puns.

First you have “March Fourth” as the name for an event that features people walking to support wounded soldiers that takes place on … yep, 4 March 2012.

Then you have “Eggs for Soldiers” itself, the product that made page three of the METRO amongst a pretty clean sweep of the tabloid media last week.

This was the little gem that they rolled into the Imperial War Museum for the photo-stunt; note the tank made out of egg boxes.

Now if I’m honest, I actually think that this is one of those behind the scenes ideas that has gone slightly awry.

Based on the YouTube comments, folk are a bit disappointed that they’ve rather given away the magic by showing that their egg box tank is actually a bloody great wooden frame merely covered in egg boxes. Unfortunate really, but a reminder that sometimes it’s better not to show your audience how the magic works.

That aside, "Eggs for Soldiers" has pulled a blinder with this one. The product is a cracker for sure – great name, bang-on cause from a media point-of-view - and I doff my cap to the construction of their story.

Knowing the product alone would get them only so far through PR, the insight was to create an event ("March Fourth") that would get people talking, and to PR that instead. In PRing their sponsorship, the product was then worked back into media attention.

In building a stronger narrative around what remains a great core story and picture, the team behind this campaign has achieved infinitely better results than they might have done otherwise.

A smart initial idea for sure. But even smarter thinking is the way it’s been sold.

James Gordon-MacIntosh is a managing partner at Hope&Glory PR and from time-to-time pens Spinning Around, a blog that he describes as “thinking out loud”