Memorable, Creative, and Weird Publicity Stunts

Publicity is huge when growing a small business. You need publicity to get your name out there, create awareness about your services or products, or to attract attention to a cause.

If you’re looking for some immediate exposure, maybe a “publicity stunt” will give you the boost your business is looking for. You don’t need to spend a ton of money to get attention; some stunts could be done for little to no money. The key ingredient to a successful publicity stunt is that your idea is creative and will immediately attract a lot of attention.

Below is some of the most creative, zany, or downright weird publicity stunts businesses or individuals have used to get them some exposure.

A publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract media attention to the promoters, the perpetrators or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized or set up by amateurs

Taco Bell’s “Target” March 2001

Offered a free taco to everyone in the United States if the core of the Mir space station hit their floating target that was placed in the South Pacific.

Janet Jackson’s “Wardrobe Malfunction” February 2004

Who could forget Jackson’s “malfunction” during the halftime show at Superbowl 38? More talked about than the commercials!

Star Tribune’s 16,000 quarters August 2004

A new publicity stunt will turn the back side of 16,000 U.S. quarters into peel-off ads from coupon marketer Boodle. The $4,000 worth of quarters will be distributed through various vending machine change dispensers, pay telephone slots and on the streets in Minneapolis. The text reads, “Money acquired in unconventional ways” and points people to the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Web site. Boodle provides online coupon services to 245 newspapers with Web sites.

This is only the second time U.S. currency has been used as an advertisement. USA Networks created peel off ads for 50,000 one dollar bills to promote its Traffic miniseries in January 2004.

GoldenPalace.com Tattoos

Because they’re legally restricted from advertising in traditional media, online casino GoldenPalace.com, based in the Caribbean, has devised many marketing stunts to grab the public’s attention, from paying people to tattoo their logo on body parts to–earlier this year–purchasing William Shatner’s kidney stone for $25,000, so they could auction it off for charity. But their most famous marketing stunt took place a few years back when they bought a partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich for $28,000. But it wasn’t just any sandwich: It looked like the likeness of the Virgin Mary had been burned into the bread.

Burger King’s “Left handed whopper” 1998

In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, “many others requested their own ‘right handed’ version.”

DC Comics “Death of Superman”

Whether we’re talking art or not, D.C. Comics is–yes–a business, generating approximately $40 billion in revenue each year. So it’s not surprising that many people felt that releasing a comic book called The Death of Superman was a marketing stunt, given that nobody with half a brain really, truly thought this company was going to stop producing its most popular title, a hit since the Superman character was born in 1938. (According to a recent estimate published in Entertainment Weekly, since that time, Superman has generated some $4 billion in revenue.)

Half.com “Renames Halfway, OR to Half.com, OR” 1999

Half.com, a retail website known for having sharply discounted items, paid Halfway, Oregon, to adopt the name Half.com for their town for a year. In exchange, Halfway received $100,000, 20 new computers for the local school and other financial subsidies.

Harry Reichenbach’s “Invisible Fish” Date Unknown

Saved a declining lunchroom for an old ex-circus woman by a curious little device. She had to attract a crowd but couldn’t afford to spend any money. Reichenbach had her place a large, transparent bowl filled with water in the window of her store. Beside the bowl she set up a cardboard sign reading, “The only living Brazilian invisible fish.”

People soon gathered to behold this wonder and some swore they could detect the invisible fish making the water move. This suggested an improvement on the idea. Reichenbach placed a little electric fan in one corner shielded from the onlookers and this blew ripples on the water. After that the crowds couldn’t be controlled. “You see it? There it goes! There! No, there!” People vied with each other to point out the fish, and the restaurant that featured such an oddity soon got trade as well.

Here is a picture of the invisible fish:

Taco Bell Buys The Liberty Bell April 1, 1996

Press Release:

In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures. It will now be called the ”Taco Liberty Bell” and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country’s debt.