Purpose– This study aims to broaden the understanding of activist public relations in developing contexts. The power of formal laws and policies in developing contexts diminishes by traditional norms and authorities, and therefore, a great deal of activist public relations efforts is devoted to controlling destructive norms and informal authorities. Activist public relations literature often assumes powerful formal institutions that are capable to control behaviors. The authors challenge this assumption by exploring activist public relations against gender-based violence (GV) in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach– This study took an interpretative and social constructionist approach to examine public relations practices of two GV activist organizations in Bangladesh. The data were collected through observation, interviews and document analysis of four campaigns. The data were coded in NVivo. Findings– The data show that the activist organizations used public relations campaigns for informal institutional work. The campaigns included educating various publics and storytelling to build supporting identities, norms and networks to address GV in Bangladesh. Research limitations/implications– The study has been limited to advocacy campaign of the nongovernmental organizations. Practical implications– The knowledge from this study can be applied to the social development sectors where public relations is used to activate activism. In addition, the public relations practitioners and scholars can find how activists public relations is emerging in developing context. Originality/value– The findings suggest that activist public relations in developing contexts carry out institutional work and create informal institutions to compensate for the formal institutional voids. In addition, this paper highlights the role of public relations in institutional work, to create and maintain contributory institutions or disrupt disturbing institutions.