PR and the Social Web

Ashton Kutcher used conventional advertising, billboards to be precise, to gain victory over CNN in his twitter sprint to a million followers.  Lamar Advertising, in a PR coup for the traditional ad network, delivered free of charge “Follow Ashton Kutcher” outdoor ads across its 1,133 digital billboards. 

With Kutcher appearing on Oprah within hours of passing the million mark, this seems like a carefully co-ordinated integrated PR campaign.  Even twitter has been fingerered with the accusation that they made it hard for users to unfollow @aplusk (Kutcher’s twitter handle).