Even the largest and most high profile companies suffer from PR disasters when stunts go wrong. Bill Gates accidentally released thousands of live mosquitoes into a crowd of celebrities who had paid $2000 each to be there, Sony included a dead goat in one of their game launches which naturally horrified a lot of people. It is a risky business trying out a publicity stunt.
It can pay off, of course, and lead to a lot of good attention to light up your inbound sales dialer with new business -but here are three examples of how it can go badly wrong:
1. Steal my identity!
The CEO of identity protection company LifeLock put his own identity on the line as a publicity stunt. Todd Davis was so confident in their product that he made his details public – his social security number was featured on billboards internet ads and television commercials and he challenged the world to steal his identity.
Inevitably thieves stole his identity thirteen times, the company was fined $12,000,000 by the federal trade commission and was accused of operating a scam, proving that not all publicity is good.
2. Save the Sea Kittens!
In one of the most misguided attempts at rebranding I have ever encountered, an animal charity tried to persuade people that fish should be called ‘Sea Kittens’. Seriously, you can see for yourself here.
“PETA thought that by renaming fish sea kittens, compassionate people who would never dream of hurting a dog or a cat might extend that sympathy to fish, or sea kittens,” said PETA campaign coordinator Ashley Byrne. In an attempt to discourage fishing for sport she said “hooking a sea kitten through the mouth and dragging her through the water is the same as hooking a kitten through the mouth and dragging her behind your car.”
Wow. Never mind the issues with equating wild creatures with pets, how did they think people were going to respond – by enthusiastically adopting fish and globally giving up fish fingers? They clearly targeted children with their campaign, so how successful was this effort? I’ll let 12-year-old Chastity Haskins provide you with an answer. She says:“I don’t see fish as sea kittens; I see them as food.”
3. The Heavy Metal album you can’t listen to
The Australian heavy metal band Blood Duster released an album on limited edition vinyl but here’s the twist – it’s unplayable. You can buy the record, but it will have the album’s title KVLT scratched into the grooves, making it impossible to play on a record player and thus useless. The band have even taken the extreme step of destroying the masters so that there is no chance of it ever mysteriously turning up on the internet – no super-fan is ever getting that one copy. Nothing. The album literally no longer exists.
The failure in this instance is that despite their insistence the album is totally unavailable to anyone ever, they released a 5 song download through all the usual channels to promote the release.
Top 10 Downright Stupid Publicity Stunts – Listverse