publicity stunt - The Art of the Prank

September 8, 2013December 15, 2023

Why Bondage? Because It’s Good For Business

Texas Business Creates Truck Decal Of Woman Bound And Tied To Bring In New Customers
by Amanda Terkel
The Huffington Post
September 6, 2013

s-TRUCK-DECALE-WOMAN-200 A Texas sign company, hoping to get some extra attention for its business, has created a truck decal featuring a woman bound and tied.

The decal shows a blonde woman in jeans curled up on the bed of a pickup truck, her hair obscuring her face and her hands and feet tied with rope. It’s meant to be slapped on a truck’s tailgate, creating an optical illusion of an actual woman lying in distress.

KWTX News 10 in Waco, Texas reported that Hornet Signs put the decal on the back of an employee’s truck to show how realistic its signs are. A female employee volunteered to be tied up and photographed for the promotional material. Continue reading “Why Bondage? Because It’s Good For Business”

September 3, 2013December 15, 2023

War of the Worlds, Alabama Style

Alabama radio station”s hoax alien alert terrifies community, strains cops
by Michael Walsh
New York Daily News
September 2, 2013

Star 94.9″s prank, inspired by Orson Welles’ 1938 radio adaptation of “˜War of the Worlds,” caused some Tuscumbia to fear a takeover. The hysteria saw the police flooded with phone calls, and now the cash-strapped department has to pay officers overtime.

aliens3n-1-web-200 The radio promotion was inspired by Orson Welles” radio adaptation of “˜War of the Worlds” in 1938.

Station Star 94.9 thought a mock warning of an extraterrestrial invasion would generate publicity for a programming change, but it spiraled out of control when listeners in Tuscumbia took it seriously last week.

“It’s a very innocuous promotion that got blown out of proportion,” Brian Rickman, program director for the Shoals Radio Group, told local news site AL.com.

Worried parents reportedly flooded the police with phone calls Thursday about a supposed bomb threat. Frightened children stayed home from school, and police were dispatched to several schools to calm fears.

“It may have started as something innocent,” said Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan, “but it has gotten out of hand and turned into an issue concerning public safety.”

Logan said that the department needs to pay officers overtime wages for the extra time they put in even though there is not enough money in the budget, reported the Times Daily, a local newspaper.

February 28, 2013December 15, 2023

How a Pig Rescues a Goat To Promote a New TV Series

Editor’s note: Media literacy alert!

Stunt went viral in September of 2012 and is reported in the NY Times the day before the TV series for which it was created premieres,

Producers avow that the media was never their target and they did nothing to promote the fake video,

This is a great example, in the evolution of marketing, of guerilla hoaxing tactics being co-opted for commercial purposes

From Nancy:

Really Cute, but Totally Faked
by Dave Itzkoff
New York Times
February 26, 2013

It seemed too adorable to be fake, but it was too good to be true.

27nathan-span-articleLarge

On Sept. 19 a 30-second video appeared on YouTube, depicting a baby goat that had become stuck in the pond of a petting zoo and that was heroically rescued with a helpful nudge from a pig that swam out to it.

Within hours the video had been posted around the Web; it had been shared with the Twitter followers of Time magazine and Ellen DeGeneres; and it had been broadcast on NBC”s “Today” show and its “Nightly News” program, ABC”s “Good Morning America” and Fox News, where the “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said of it, “You couldn”t do this at Warner Brothers as a cartoon and make it seem more realistic.”

But the video was thoroughly staged. It was created for a new Comedy Central series, “Nathan for You,” with the help of some 20 crew members, including animal trainers, scuba divers and humane officers, and required the fabrication of a plastic track to guide the pig to the goat (which was never in jeopardy).

Video by jebdogrpm

That a faked video had been so rapidly disseminated by unskeptical news outlets was both surprising and dispiritingly familiar to professional experts on the news media. Continue reading “How a Pig Rescues a Goat To Promote a New TV Series”

October 10, 2012December 15, 2023

Pizza Hut’s Cheesey PR Stunt

Update from AP, October 15, 2012: Pizza Hut rethinks presidential debate stunt

Could pepperoni spoil presidential debate?
by Candice Choi and Mae Anderson
AP
October 10, 2012

New York (AP) – During the next presidential debate, the candidates will be pondering the important questions of our time. But the most controversial may be “Sausage or pepperoni?”

Pizza Hut is offering a lifetime of free pizza – one large pie a week for 30 years – or a check for $15,600 to anyone who poses the question to either President Barack Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney during the live Town Hall-style debate next Tuesday.

The proposed stunt, which the pizza chain announced Tuesday, threatens to tick off millions of viewers who are expected to tune in to the debate to hear what the candidates have to say about the economy, health care and other serious concerns facing this country.

“It’s a terrible waste of time for the presidential candidates, the people who organize the debate and everyone who wants to listen,” said Mickey Sheridan, a 43–year-old bartender from Queens, N.Y., who is a Pizza Hut fan. “They should find some other way to advertise.”

Pizza Hut’s move comes as marketers continue to look for new ways to engage TV audiences that increasingly are resistant to their traditional commercials. It’s also happening at a time when Americans are paying closer attention to presidential debates. On Oct. 3, an estimated 67.2 million people watched the first debate between Obama and Romney, the largest TV audience for a presidential debate since 1992, according to Nielsen’s ratings service. Continue reading “Pizza Hut’s Cheesey PR Stunt”

May 18, 2012December 15, 2023

Dynamo Walking on Water

The Magician Dynamo Walks on Water: