The marketing world once again delivered some of the best PR stunts and most inventive brand activations in 2025. With the industry more competitive than ever, brands were pushed to deliver bold ideas, extreme creativity and boundary-breaking execution, and they absolutely delivered.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be rounding up the standout work of the year, from unforgettable experiential moments to OOH installations that became impossible to ignore. To kick things off, here’s a curated list of the top 10 PR stunts of 2025, featuring everything from giant witches’ legs to a Black Mirror tech drop that blurred the line between fiction and reality.
Flagstone: Sleeping Savings
Flagstone brought one of the year’s smartest financial PR stunts to Canary Wharf with Sleeping Savings, a striking large-scale installation highlighting the £1 trillion sitting idle in low-interest UK accounts.
An 8m x 3.5m sculpture of a sleeping giant, made from more than 2,000 printed “£” notes, visualised the idea of money that isn’t working hard enough. The installation was supported by a pop-up, branded touchpoints and outreach teams engaging commuters with smarter saving solutions.
The result: a culturally shareable moment that turned a dry statistic into one of the best brand activations in the finance sector.
Puma: The Biggest Goal Ever
PUMA teamed up with Dude London to create “the biggest goal ever” on the Thames. A 10.5-metre illuminated inflatable football floated beneath Tower Bridge, scoring the “first goal of the season.”
With Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers involved, the moment captured city-wide attention and dominated social media, a simple visual made unforgettable through smart placement and scale.
Bloomsbury: The Poisoned King
One of the best PR stunts in publishing came from Bloomsbury, who promoted The Poisoned King with a dramatic 15-foot manticore sculpture touring iconic London locations, Westminster Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and beyond.
Crafted from lightweight materials and expert rigging, the creature dominated public spaces and social feeds. The activation captured attention, sparked conversation and made mythology feel real, proving how fantasy worlds can translate into high-impact, real-world PR.
Apple TV: Severance Grand Central Station
To announce the long-awaited return of Severance, Apple TV+ transformed Grand Central Station into a living piece of the show’s eerie universe. The real cast, suited, briefcased and robotic in movement, moved through the space with unsettling precision.
With no logos, no signage and no overt promotion, this became one of the best guerrilla PR stunts of the year, driven entirely by atmosphere, tension and confused bystanders attempting to decode what they witnessed.
A masterclass in world-building, and proof that when a show’s identity is strong, subtlety can be more powerful than spectacle.
Hive: Solar-Henge
Hive and Smarts Agency turned the 2025 solar eclipse into a sustainability-driven spectacle with Solar-Henge, a 5-metre-high, 20-metre-wide Stonehenge replica made entirely from solar panels.
Located at Alexandra Palace, the activation showcased that solar power works even when the sun isn’t shining. With branded deck chairs, eclipse glasses and gourmet food on offer, the public enjoyed a powerful blend of purpose, creativity and spectacle, solidifying its place among the best brand activations of 2025.
The Ordinary: Money Endorsement Pile
The Ordinary delivered one of 2025’s best experiential PR stunts with The Secret Ingredient Store, a New York pop-up exposing the real cost of celebrity endorsements.
A window stacked with branded dollar bills highlighted how much consumers would be paying, sometimes 60% more, if the brand used celebrities to sell skincare. Inside, visitors received personalised analysis and product recommendations.
A sharp, provocative idea rooted in brand truth: transparency over hype.
Netflix: Black Mirror “The Nubbin”
Netflix engineered one of the boldest PR stunts of 2025 with The Nubbin, a fictional tech device created to launch the latest Black Mirror season.
More than 100 replica devices and 20 premium influencer kits were sent out with full branding, packaging and a detailed backstory, convincing enough to trigger online speculation. Was this a leak? A prototype? Something bigger?
The campaign showed how immersive storytelling and physical world-building can turn a non-existent product into a viral cultural moment. Sometimes, the best PR stunt is the one that feels just real enough.
Aldi: Cap-Aldi
Aldi kept things simple and hilarious with “Cap-Aldi,” a surprise store takeover featuring Lewis Capaldi performing live on a Nottingham rooftop.
No over-production. No heavy set build. Just tape, a pop star, and a smart understanding of what social media loves. A perfect example of how the best earned-media PR stunts don’t always need a huge budget, just cultural timing and personality.
The Sphere: Wicked Witch of the East Installation
The Sphere delivered one of the most visually spectacular OOH PR stunts of 2025 with a 50-foot installation of the Wicked Witch of the East’s legs and ruby slippers.
Inside, the immersive show expanded into a full-sensory Wizard of Oz experience, utilising haptics, environmental effects, scent and the venue’s 160,000-sq-ft LED interior. A theatrical, cinematic and unforgettable activation that captured global attention.
Tinder: Ex-press Emotional Baggage Truck
Tinder tapped into universal heartbreak with one of the year’s most emotionally resonant experiential PR stunts. The “Ex-press Disposal Truck” invited singles in Mumbai to dump items from past relationships into a bold pink lorry labelled “Caution: Emotional Baggage Inside.”
A highly shareable moment that reframed breakups not as private shame, but as communal release.
Conclusion
If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that the best PR stunts win by being unforgettable. Whether playful, provocative or mind-bending, each of these activations shows how creative risks can pay off in headlines, shares and genuine cultural impact. And with brands pushing harder than ever, next year promises even bigger ideas.
