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Who says publicity stunts are passé? Outrageous staged
events designed solely to show up on the evening news still
get the job done when they're clever and fun.
Stan Heimowitz, owner of Celebrity Gems in Castro Valley,
California, recently successfully dramatized in the streets
of San Francisco the fact that IntraLinux, a small software
company -- Heimowitz's client -- is challenging Microsoft,
the industry giant.
Outside the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where Microsoft
was launching its new product Windows 2000, a Bill Gates
look-alike was matched against a Penguin (IntraLinux's
mascot) in a boxing ring whose four corners were held up by
Penguinettes. The Penguin pinned Gates, naturally, while a
plane towing a banner that read "IntraLinux" flew overhead.
This creative bit of street theater made its point to
onlookers and the media alike.
Publicity stunts go back at least to the days of showman
P.T. Barnum, who announced his circus' arrival in town by
hitching an elephant to a plow beside the train tracks. This
raised such a ruckus that it's still against the law in
some states to plow a field with an elephant.
Suspense became an element in a stunt featured on the front
page of the Los Angeles Times in 1980 when the paper
challenged Bob Allen to make good on his boast that he could
be dropped into any city with $100 and 72 hours later own
several properties without paying down payments. While
readers wondered if Allen could really do it, the author of
Nothing Down indeed pulled it off.
Attention-getting can go high-brow too, as when actor Norman
George, who portrays Edgar Allen Poe in a one-man show,
persuaded the city of Boston to rename Carver Street, where
the creator of "The Raven" was born, for the poet in
connection with the 180th anniversary of Poe's birth in
1989.
The same dramatic elements come into play every year when we
have another Take Our Daughters to Work Day. The media get
to shoot colorful, charming footage of young girls in places
they don't normally visit, and then they can add a smidgeon
of controversy by quoting people who think girls don't
deserve favoritism over boys.
Publicity stunts and milder special events aren't ever a
sure thing. Your parade can get rained on and a breaking
news story elsewhere can pull the media away. When
Massachusetts retailer Rick Segel sponsored a gala contest
for the Best Hairdresser of Medford, the fur coats that bore
contestants' numbers got switched, causing prizes to be
awarded to the wrong people. Two judges walked out and
fistfights almost broke out among the hairdressers.
Despite the risks, Stan Heimowitz had such a hoot with his
IntraLinux Penguin vs. Gates bout that he floated himself as
a publicity-stunt impresario to PR and ad agencies. The
whole event cost just $3,700.00, Heimowitz says, including
the actors and costumes. Compare that to the cost of a color
magazine ad that gets two seconds of a reader's attention!
Marcia Yudkin marcia@yudkin.com is the author of the
classic guide to comprehensive PR, "6 Steps to Free
Publicity," now for sale in an updated edition at Amazon.com
and in bookstores everywhere. She also spills the secrets
on advanced tactics for today's publicity seekers in
"Powerful, Painless Online Publicity," available from
www.yudkin.com/powerpr.htm . |
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