Caught in a Tale Spin
You have to admire a really good publicity stunt. The most bare-faced to my recollection occured when Taco Bell floated a raft in the Pacific and then should any fragment of the hit the floating ad-hoarding. ``Taco Bell is capturing the imagination of millions of people as they eagerly await Mir's return to earth,'' stated the . But it was marketing genius: cost of publicity stunt one raft..result international press (including this)
But the master of the publicity stunt is surely the great : the man who launched such headline grabbing (and entirely fictitious) campaigning organisations as the (slogan "a nude horse is a rude horse"). His exploits are best read about at his doubtless perfectly , but his antics at Superbowl XVII give you a flavour:
During the 1983 Super Bowl game between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Redskins, Abel snuck a fake official onto the field. He called four plays before being chased down the sideline by a cop.
Abel is still with us and promises something great for 2006 - perhaps he'll turn to the blogs. For just as the web brings with it new forms of "viral"marketing so it brings with it new opportunities for headline grabbing hoaxes and publicity stunts. You can view this inventive history at the excellent
Journalists collude in this process more than we probably should, particularly during the summer dolldrums, mistakenly following the logic that a new website necessarily equals "new news" so that any daft new scheme on the net has the potential to make waves as long as it's the first to do so.
Case in point the (Full disclosure: I wanted to cover that one - thankfully boycotted by a wiser - and German - editor with the words "there'll be no renting Germans on this progamme")
But the point is that as well as reflecting the Wisdom of Crowds the blogs can also illustrate the Madness of Crowds. Often the line between wisdom and madness is a thin one - Snakes on a Plane - divides the critics. But with SOAP bloggers were, in the main, complicit in the marketing strategy and the buzz predated the spin. As a group, however, they dislike being taken for a ride, and the suspicion that they may be explains some of the vitriolic responses to Steorn's claims to have discovered a miraculous source of energy.
Pending further news, of course, the jury is still out on Steorn, though even they admit their claims run counter to well founded scientific principles. But bloggers have their antenna up "Free energy or Free Publicity" ran the headline of one blog post I saw. But even virulent skepticism if there's enough of it can generate headlines, in a sense the negative buzz becomes the story. It's the reason we reported on Steorn last Tuesday. In doing so we may, if the skeptics are right, have been complicit in an extraordinarily effective publicity stunt (though the company strenuously denied this when we spoke to them).
It leaves journalists in a dilemma. In reporting a stunt, even as a stunt, one fulfills the promoters aims. On the other hand witty rouses and stunts can make fun copy. A search of the coverage of the Steorn story reveals spotty coverage among the major outlets (, to name two.) perhaps reflecting this indecision. I think we did the right thing on Monday, in reporting the curiosity and skepticism of bloggers on this issue but I can equally see the point of those who say it would be better not to mention it at all.
For there are certainly occasions were a stunt should be denied the oxygen of publicity. That's my attitude to at least one infamous fraud to have affected the Â鶹Éç. And it's why there are no links to it here.
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