Publicity Stunts Still Earn Attention
   by Marcia Yudkin

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!

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Marcia Yudkin <marcia@yudkin.com> is the author of Poor Richard's
Web Site Marketing Makeover and 10 other books. Her site review
service tells you what, if anything, you need to change at your
site to turn visitors into customers and clients. Details:
http://www.yudkin.com/sitereview.htm

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