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."