The Art of the Publicity Stunt

The publicity stunt can be a great method to get some quick viral attention. However not all publicity stunts are created equally. Lets take a look at a few recent ones and grade them on their effectiveness and the amount of attention they were able to gather.

1. Sacha Baron Cohen - Red Carpet 2012

You cannot fault Sacha for this stunt. Lets face it - this is what he makes his living on. Pushing the boundary, making people mad, acting completely off of his rocker. This is exactly what we expect to see from Sacha Baron Cohen. He not only managed to live up to his reputation, he actually managed to put a relatively unknown character on the map (The Dictator). Would I suggest this stunt to anyone else - not a chance. Humiliating a public icon is usually not the way to go. However the huge uproar he caused and attention received in the media parried with his previous work and reputation yields a grade of "A". Well done Sacha, we expect equally despicable stunts from you in the near future.


2. SXSW - Homeless Hot Spot

Homeless people are not usually the focus of a companies campaigns/publicity stunts. However at this years SXSW show, BHH Labs decided to turn the homeless people who gather around the event into a Wifi Hotspot show attendees could utilize. This stunt landed in the realm of controversial. On one side you can say they are employing the homeless, in a sense this was actually helping to thwart the problem. However on the other hand (where I currently stand on this topic) you could argue they were merely taking advantage of these people. Lets face it, there is no LONG term plan to help these people out, it was purely done for direct and viral publicity. It is not like this was a part of a larger "Stop Homelessness In America" campaign. In this sense the ploy for attention was distasteful. The general marketing world seems to be split on this topic, for that I will give this stunt a "C". Only because there does not seem to be a majority on either side of the topic and i will try to remain neutral (as much as possible).



3. Super Bowl 'PawnGo' Butterfingers in Boston 

Sporting events can draw a lot of attention and emotion. An online pawnshop (PawnGo.com) saw an opportunity to make some noise following the Super Bowl and dropped a thousand Butterfinger candy bars in Boston. Of course the wound was still fresh in New England - a second tragic defeat to the New York football Giants. This at first does seem like a 'cute' publicity stunt, and initially it did create a surge of visibility. That however wore off quick and the backlash began. First Butterfinger made a formal announcement condoning the action and denying any involvement. Then came the New England media, who again lashed out at the nature of the stunt. To make things worse, the backlash started to hit more closely to home for PawnGo - in the form of PawnGo's website and more specifically their comment section. I am not sure I need to go into any further detail about the type of comments left on their page, do I? They made a business (pawn shops) with an already poor public attitude (though surging on the backs of some new television shows) look even more sleazy than they already do. This is a great example of a publicity stunt gone wrong. This stunt gets an "F". There was way to much backlash and clean up required to right the ship after the stunt, especially when you weigh it against the slight initial positives achieved. PawnGo may be better off sticking to more standard methods of Marketing, both now and in the future.


Stay tuned - we will be sure to drop in some more judgement, just as soon as the next publicity stunt hits the media!


Images via Belle News, TakePart.com and Herald Sun