Top 10 Successful Marketing Stunts – Part 3

4. Company: Burger King

    Year of the Stunt: 1998

The Stunt: Obviously inspired by the good folks at Taco Bell, Burger King put out an ad in USA Today, stating that they'd re-engineered their most famous sandwich in order to benefit 32 million Americans, and now they were ready to present . . . the Left-Handed Whopper. They offered details of how the sandwich had been designed to fit more comfortably in the left hand, including rotating the condiments and redistributing the weight of the toppings.

What Happened Next: This one didn't go over quite as well as they'd hoped, since some of those 32 million Americans came into the restaurant and were annoyed to discover they couldn't actually order the Left-Handed Whopper. Still, there was no real backlash when the restaurant chain admitted it had been an April Fool's stunt, and since the ad brought in customers, including many who requested that they receive a right-handed burger, it should be called a success.

Lesson Learned: No harm in being inspired by successful marketing stunts that have come before, as long as you provide your own twist. The newspaper ad on April Fool's Day had already been done, but otherwise, it was a creative gag.

Certainly, Burger King was encouraged by the prank: They've continued to have a sense of humor when it comes to their marketing, their latest gag being the website, www.subservientchicken.com, which was unleashed on the internet without much fanfare -- only a few friends of people who worked for Burger King's ad agency were told about it -- allowing word-of-mouth to spread and customers to discover it for themselves.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a video of somebody in a chicken suit who will fulfill (almost) any command you type in for it. Within the first six months the site had received nearly 20 million hits, and web surfers spent an average of six minutes playing the game. Seems it never hurts to have a sense of humor.

5. Company: SonicYoga.com

    Year of the Stunt: 2002

The Stunt: Soon after launching his Manhattan-based yoga school in 2001, owner Jonathan Fields teamed up with Adelphi University to run the first - ever study on determining how many calories yoga burns. Knowing that the idea had media appeal -- in fact, Fields also owns a marketing firm called Creative Vibe which he started in 2003--he sent a note to several top fitness magazine editors in New York City, explaining the concept of the study and offering an exclusive to whatever editor reached him first and agreed to do a story on the study. Within a week, Self magazine committed--and even asked to be in the study.

What Happened Next: After the article was written, an editor at Self called Fields and mentioned that it was a shame the studio didn't have a yoga instruction video to go with the article. Fields instinctively said, "Oh, we do have a video. It's in post-production, and it'll be out by the publication date." He quickly made up a name for the video and a price so the editor could add that information to the article, then he hung up and turned to his partner and said, "We need to make a yoga video very quickly." They put together a video, which sold out after the magazine hit the shelves. Since then, they've made four more videos.

Lesson Learned: There's something to be said for thinking big and on the move. Fields could have been extremely embarrassed had he not been able to quickly produce a workout video that actually was generally well reviewed. And certainly another lesson to take away from this is that when you're small, teaming up with big names -- Adelphi University, Self magazine -- can make you seem bigger to the public than you really are.

But maybe the best lesson is to emulate Fields' confidence. As Fields puts it, "If you want to be in the news, make news. You don't need connections, you don't need a publicist, but you do need to think way outside the box." Having said that, Fields cautions, "Even in the throes of wild creativity, there's a sound business reason, beyond publicity, to do what you want people to notice. Integrity is paramount."

Top 10 Successful Marketing Stunts – Part 2

2. Company: ProShade

    Year of the Stunt: 2006

The Stunt: ProShade is a company that makes a 3-in-1 gadget that combines a visor, sunglasses and a lanyard--which is a cord and a hook that allows you to carry something on them, like keys or a pocketknife or what have you. Proshade made an intriguing offer to the National Park Service when they proposed to give $4 million to Mount Rushmore in exchange for getting to put a logo visor on each of the presidents' heads. The company explained in a news release, "The National Park Service needs more support in preserving Mount Rushmore. There's a dearth of funding in the budget to provide the national landmark with the facelift it needs. If they accept, we'd like this to go toward preservation efforts-including a much-needed pressurized wash."

What Happened Next: Although the National Park Service didn't take them up on their offer and despite the fact that any decent journalist knew they were being taken, the company received a fair amount of publicity for their outlandish offer. One writer for Adweek summed it up best in a column about ProShade's concern for Mount Rushmore when he said, "This obviously smacks of a blatant publicity stunt, as I can't conceive of anyone agreeing to this offer (especially at such a low price). But I'll write about it, anyway."

Lesson Learned: Journalists are human, too--they love a good story. Give it to them, and they just may take you up on writing about  the story.

3. Company: GoldenPalace.com

    Year of the Stunt: 2004

The Stunt: 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.

What Happened Next: The casino received worldwide attention for their purchase, getting media exposure in everything from USA Today to the BBC to China Daily. CNN, FOX and MSNBC all covered it, as did the evening news networks. The casino likely saw the $28,000 as a bargain, considering that not only did it buy them a lot of media exposure, they were able to milk it for quite awhile. They later generated a few more headlines for buying the pan that the revered grilled cheese sandwich was cooked on, they still sell T-shirts emblazoned with the image of the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich, and they took the blessed food on a world tour, displaying it in places like the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas. They even organized the Goldenpalace.com World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship in early 2005, in which world competitive eaters came to Venice, California, to eat as many grilled cheese sandwiches as possible--and to win $10,000.

Lesson Learned: Even the most outlandish marketing stunts -- including those involving the often-dicey topic of religion -- can work to a company's advantage. The important thing to remember is that the marketing stunt should fit into the character of the business. You could definitely argue that any marketing stunt in the name of charity is only going to make an online gambling casino look better, especially when it's located on an island outside the United States' reach. And if the public's expectations of your business are low to begin with, it's harder for a marketing stunt to blow up in your face.

Top 10 Successful Marketing Stunts - Part 1

Original article by Geoff Williams - July 20, 2006

(taken from http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketingideas/article159484.html)

Ever wonder just how far some companies will go to get noticed? See how 10 companies succeeded  -- and five failed miserably--when it came to making some noise.

The good news is, marketing stunts often work. Throughout history, marketers have tried to be creative about how they inform the public of their product. In 1903, for instance, newspaper publisher Henri Desgrange started a new bicycle road race as a temporary publicity stunt to promote his newspaper, never imagining that the Tour de France would be going strong more than 100 years later.

The Miss America Pageant was created in 1921 as a clever way to attract business and tourists to Atlantic City. The Pillsbury Bake-Off, which was launched in 1949, was intended to be a one-time event, but it's become an annual event for the baking company.

But history is also littered with tales of marketing stunts that were failures. According to a 1926 Associated Press article, for instance, there was a candy company in Berlin that tried dropping foil-wrapped chocolates on its citizens to advertise their services. But police had to step in after they received complaints of bruises and of children's Sunday school suits being ruined; they had numerous complaints from bald-headed men who were getting splattered with the sweet treats.

In 1976, several airlines launched an ill-conceived marketing stunt and began giving away free drinks to coach passengers in order to convince people to fly. It was apparently popular with the public, but passengers weren't the only ones getting hammered: So were the companies' bottom lines as passengers drank up their profits.

The following is the list of 10 marketing stunts that exceeded expectations--and 5 that badly flopped.

10 Marketing Stunts Done Right

1. Company: Taco Bell Corp.

Year of the Stunt: 1996

The Stunt: In the morning, an ad appeared in The New York Times with a headline that read: "Taco Bell Buys the Liberty Bell." The ad copy explained that Taco Bell was "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." It sounded logical, if distasteful. In another press release, Taco Bell helpfully explained that people had been "adopting" highways for years and that purchasing a national treasure was just a way of furthering that idea.

What Happened Next: Thousands of people called in their complaints to the home of the Liberty Bell, the National Historic Park in Philadelphia, but by noon, Taco Bell admitted what many people suspected, since the day was, after all, April 1. The Taco Bell ad was an April Fool's joke, and the media and public lapped it up. More than 650 print media outlets and 400 broadcast outlets covered the prank, reaching more than 70 million Americans, according to Taco Bell's marketing department.

The company's revenue increased by $500,000 that day and by $600,000 more the following day, compared to the previous week's sales. Even then - White House spokesperson Mike McCurry, when asked about the Taco Liberty Bell, got inspired to reveal that the Lincoln Memorial had been sold and would from now on be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Lesson Learned: It can pay to have a sense of humor in the business.

The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing

The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing: Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is her explanation of the top nine types of stories that people like to talk about.

1. Aspirations and beliefs:  More than any other topic, people like to hear about aspirations and beliefs. (This may be why religion is the most popular word-of-mouth topic, ever.) Aspirations are helpful because they help us connect emotionally to the speaker, the company, and the issues. They help us see into a person or company’s soul.

2. David vs. Goliath:  In the story of David and Goliath, the young Hebrew David took on the giant Goliath and beat him. It is the way Southwest Airlines conquered the big carriers, the way the once unknown Japanese car manufacturers took on Detroit, and the way social media is taking on the media giants. Sharing stories about how a small organization is taking on a big company is great business sport. Rooting for the underdog grabs our emotions, creates meaning, and invokes passion. We like to listen to the little guy talk about how he’s going to win and why the world—or the industry—will be a better place for it.

3. Avalanche about to roll:  The mountain is rumbling, the sun is getting stronger, but the rocks and snow are yet to fall. You want to tune in and listen to the “avalanche about to roll” topic because you know that there’s a chance that you will be killed if caught unaware. This theme taps into our desire to get the inside story before it’s widely known. It’s not only interesting to hear someone speak about these ideas, they have the ingredients for optimal viral and pass-along effect.

4. Contrarian   /    counterintuitive/     challenging assumptions:  These three themes are like first cousins, similar in many ways but slightly different.

Contrarian:  perspectives defy conventional wisdom; they are positions that often are not in line with—or may even be directly opposite to—the wisdom of the crowd. The boldness of contrarian views grabs attention; the more original and less arrogant they are, the more useful they will be in provoking meaningful conversations.

Counterintuitive:  ideas fight with what our intuition (as opposed to a majority of the public) says is true. When you introduce counterintuitive ideas, it takes people a minute to reconcile the objective truth with their gut assumption about the topic. Framing views counter to how we intuitively think about topics—going against natural “gut instincts”—pauses and then resets how we think and talk about concepts.

Challenging widely-held assumptions:  means that when everyone else says the reason for an event is X, you show that it’s actually Y. Challenging assumptions is good for debate and discussion, and especially important in protecting corporate reputation.

5. Anxieties:  Anxiety is a cousin of the avalanche about to roll, but it is more about uncertainty than an emerging, disruptive trend. Examples of anxiety themes abound: (1) Financial services companies urging older people to hurry up and invest more for retirement: “You’re 55. Will you have your needed $3.2 million to retire comfortably?” (2) Tutoring companies planting seeds of doubt about whether our kids will score well enough on the college admission tests to get into a good college. Although anxiety themes grab attention, go easy. People are becoming skeptical, and rightly so. Too many politicians, companies have bombarded us with FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) with no facts to back up their point.

6. Personalities and personal stories:  There’s nothing more interesting than a personal story with some life lessons to help us understand what makes executives tick and what they value the most. The points of these personal stories are remembered, retold, and instilled into organizational culture. Robert Goizueta, the respected CEO of Coca-Cola, said he hated giving speeches but he was always telling stories - often personal ones about how he and his family had to flee Cuba when Castro took control and had nothing more than his education.

Similarly, when Steve Jobs gave the commencement address to Stanford University in June 2005, he shared his personal story and life lessons. That commencement address, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” was talked about on thousands of blog and was published verbatim in Fortune magazine. It helped us see Jobs in a new light.

7. How-to stories and advice:  Theoretical and thought-provoking ideas are nice, but people love pragmatic how-to advice: how to solve problems, find next practices, and overcome common obstacles. To be interesting, how-to themes need to be fresh and original, providing a new twist to what people already know or tackle thorny issues like how to get IT and marketing organizations to work together despite deep culture clashes between the two.

8. Glitz and glamour:  The world today is addicted to glamour and celebrity. Finding a way to logically link to something glitzy and glamorous is a surefire conversation starter. For example, tagging on to the widespread interest in the Academy Awards, or in Bollywood or any scandal or latest tidbit involving stars or celebrities is a surefire way to get attention from the audience.

9. Seasonal/event-related:  Last, and least interesting but seems to resonate, is tying your topic into seasonal or major events. Talking about industry predictions around the New Year, advertising during IPL season, executive compensation reform when an executive of a well known company “resigns” with an especially bloated compensation package are examples of this type of story.

Product obsolescence - a great way to make yourself a dinosaur and get a benefit!

Product obsolescence: is a decline in the value of equipment or of a product brought about by an introduction of new technology or by changes in demand. Obsolescence occurs when a product, is no longer wanted even though it may still be in good working order. Obsolescence frequently occurs because a replacement has become available that is superior in one or more aspects.

Technical obsolescence:  may occur when a new product or technology is superior than the old technology, and it becomes preferred to utilize the new technology in place of the old like CD-ROM over floppy disk which in turn were overtaken by USB based pen drives and later by portable hard disks which can store Upto a tera byte of memory. Similarly DVD become popular and replaced VHS technology. DVD allowed for greater quality and multimedia functions

Functional obsolescence: a product may become functionally obsolete when they do not function in the manner that they did when they were created. This may be due to natural wear, or due to some intervening act. For example, if a new mobile phone technology is adopted, and there is no longer a provider who provides service based on the old technology, any mobile phone using that technology would be rendered obsolete due to the inability to access service.

Planned obsolescence: Sometimes marketers deliberately introduce obsolescence into their product strategy, with the objective of generating long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases. This might lead to manufacturing a product which is deliberately designed to wear out within five years of its purchase, pushing consumers to replace it within five years.

Style obsolescence: When a product is no longer desirable because it has gone out of the popular fashion, its style is obsolete. One example is "acid-wash" jeans. Although the acid-wash jeans may still be perfectly functional, it is no longer desirable because style trends have moved away from the acid-wash look.

Because of the "fashion cycle", stylistically obsolete products may eventually regain popularity and cease to be obsolete. A current example is puffed sleeves worn by women that were very popular which were popular in the 1970s and the 80s, became stylistically obsolete in the 1900s, and returned to popularity in the recent times.

Postponement obsolescence: Postponement obsolescence refers to a situation where technological improvements are not introduced to a product, even though they could be. One possible example is when an auto manufacturer develops a new feature for its line of cars, but chooses not to implement that feature in the production of the least expensive car in its product line. For example it is quite possible for a car manufacturer to introduce auto gear transmission in the low price car segment. But the car maker would not do so as auto gear transmission is perceived as a feature that is available only in the luxury and the high price car segment.