Last night Eastenders saw in its 30th Birthday in style, by smashing the ratings with over ten million viewers watching. Which in real terms meant that 40% of the UK TV audience actually tuned in LIVE. Something almost unheard of in today’s multi-platform market. It didn’t seem to matter if you were a fan or not, watched it every day or never so much as seen an episode, EVERYONE  was talking about it.

Fuelled by an almost one year long PR campaign, which had been building the anticipation, it came to its climax in last night’s episode, when we FINALLY  discovered just who had killed Lucy Beale.  It didn’t really matter in the end what the final outcome was – the Eastenders team had done its job. It wasn’t just sheer column inches that Eastenders dominated this week, last night’s episode also set social media alight becoming the most tweeted about soap in the UK EVER, with over one million tweets sent. It was all we could talk about in the office this morning.

However, our absolute favourite piece of PR to come off the back of the Eastenders 30th anniversary was actually by (shock/horror) rival soap Neighbours! They created a hilarious viral called EastErinsborough– where stars of the Aussie soap recreated some of Eastenders finest moments over 30 years including Peggy Mitchells infamous ‘Get out my pub.’

This viral showcases an excellent example of how to piggypack on the news agenda and steal some of the PR limelight. It got over 19,000 views in 24 hours and publications such as Telegraph.co.uk Digital Spy writing about the hilarious spoof and a discussion on BBC 5Live – it certainly got people talking. And importantly, marks the beginning of the shows very own 30 Anniversary campaign, later this year. Cool, very cool!