publicity stunt - The Art of the Prank

March 13, 2012December 15, 2023

Homeless Hotspot Publicity Stunt Melts Down at SXSW

‘Homeless Hotspot’ stunt draws ire at SXSW
The Garden Island
March 13, 2012

Austin, Texas (AP) “” A marketing stunt that paid homeless people to carry Wi-Fi signals during the South By Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, is drawing widespread criticism.

BBH Labs, a unit of the global marketing agency BBH, gave 14 people from a homeless shelter mobile Wi-Fi devices and T-shirts that announced “I am a 4G Hotspot.”

BBH New York chairwoman Emma Cookson says the company paid them a minimum of $50 a day. She called the experiment a modernized version of homeless selling street newspapers.

But many have called the program exploitive. Wired.com wrote that it “sounds like something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia.”

ReadWriteWeb called it a “blunt display of unselfconscious gall.”

The experiment was meant to begin last Friday but rain delayed its implementation until Sunday. It stopped Monday.

image: cbc.ca

March 12, 2012December 15, 2023

Million Mustache March!

From Tim Jackson:

It’s the Million Mustache March in support of the Stache Act – a simple request for a tax deduction stimulus for the cost of maintaining facial hair. Sounds reasonable…

Join the Movement to Seek Tax Equity for People of Facial Hair

From AmericanMustacheInstitute.org website:

On President”s Day 2012, The American Mustache Institute introduced the Million Mustache March in support of the Stimulus To Allow Critical Hair Expenses, or the STACHE Act. If adopted by Congress, the STACHE Act would provide up to a $250.00 annual tax refund for Mustached Americans. Americans can participate by:

Visiting StacheAct.com where you can add a past presidential mustache to a Facebook photo;

Or, by joining the American Mustache Institute in Washington, D.C., on April 1 for a physical march of one million Mustached Americans from the U.S. Capitol to the White House.

For every Million Mustache March participant, America”s leading tax authority – H&R Block – will make contributions to Millions From One “” which delivers clean drinking water to those who cannot obtain it themselves.

Continue reading “Million Mustache March!”

February 26, 2012December 15, 2023

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Red Carpet Publicity Stunt

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Admiral General Aladeen Spills Kim Jong-Il’s Ashes On Ryan Seacrest [UPDATE]
news.moviefone.com
February 26, 2012

http://embed.5min.com/517282361/

After days of back and forth about whether or not Sacha Baron Cohen would be allowed to show up on the Oscars red carpet dressed as his character from “The Dictator,” the comic appeared at the 84th annual Academy Awards in full dictatorial regalia — and proceeded to prank E! red carpet host Ryan Seacrest.

Cohen — who plays Admiral General Aladeen, a deposed North African dictator who comes to America, in the upcoming comedy — walked the red carpet with two statuesque models before stopping to talk with Seacrest.

“I’m wearing John Galliano, but the socks are from K-Mart,” Cohen quipped; he said he was holding an urn of “Kim Jong-Il’s ashes.” He then spilled the urn on a shocked Seacrest, before being whisked away by security.

As Seacrest told Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith after the Cohen interview, the urn was likely filled with powdered pancake mix.