Robots, James Bond and some great PR Antics

PR Antics this week devotes itself to the happy world of robotics.

Some new robots have been created by scientists Daniel Mellinger and Alex Kushleyev, who have, it turns out, own KMel Robotics that will design and market these “quadrotors”.

I guarantee that after watching this film they created, you will want one of these things:

What’s great about this video is that it has managed to walk a fine PR line.

The PR story is pretty clear to those of us who watch for stunts day-in, day-out: here are some amazing pieces of kit, coming to a Hamleys near you soon.

But the way that it has been executed is great work.

First of all, the film above was shot at TED2012, arguably the place where the finest minds in the world meet to talk about their work. So it has a mass of authority and credibility – the stamp of approval from the science community as being at the edge of what is possible.

But listen carefully and you’ll note that the robots in question are playing the James Bond theme tune. A tune that is utterly recognisable world-wide and plays to everyone’s inner-geek – as well as into a community of fans of Bond who will share the content further than the scientist core that might otherwise have been its audience.

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”