Pranks as Promos

I was intrigued with an article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend entitled “The New Pranksters” about young people across the country who are gathering and participating in silly stunts to break out of the daily monotony and enjoy a sense of camaradie. Things like sets of idential twins mirroring each other on each side of a New York City subway car, bursting into song at malls, standing like statues in a public park.

What does this have to do with Web 2.0? Well, it turns out these things make great fodder for YouTube and online video, as well. Which brings me to how it relates to public relations.

It’s always been a standard in public relations to create an event or “stunt” that will get the media’s attention. Well, these are just the kinds of things that do it. It’s almost sad how easy the media is to manipulate if you just know the types of things they are looking for. I mean, shouldn’t they be covering serious news instead of a bunch of people dancing to music no one can hear at a park? But, alas, that makes for good TV, doesn’t it?

So, lesson here, sad though it is, if you can dream up a stunt that’s funny, quirky and ridiculous, yet that underscores your brand or involves it as a key portion — and get it on video — you’re likely to have a media hit and a viral hit online.

Think about something that people would enjoy watching, that fits the old journalistic standard of “man bites dog” instead of “dog bites man”, that’s in a place that’s easy to get to at a time that people and the media are more likely to be available (ie don’t hold it during the first presidential debate).

In the article, they cited as an example Taco Bell, who hired a group to help them perform a stunt to promote their new Fruitista Freeze drink. The group posed as employees and patrons in one location and “froze” in place, much to the surprise of real customers. The video has been viewed more than 500,000 times online. Pretty good exposure for Taco Bell, I’d say. Oh yeah, the twin/subway prank? More than 700,000 views on YouTube.