PR Stunt

OK, we admit it. We’re just suckers for a flash mob—especially when it happens in the middle of a corporate convention where people are conducting serious meetings and wearing very serious business attire. Hats off to Cisco for injecting some real fun back into the Cable Show exhibit hall, which has included fewer stunts in recent years stemming from budget trimming. Here, Cisco CTO John Chapman’s very serious speech to talk about serious acronyms like DOCSIS and CCAP was rudely interrupted by, you guessed it… Kanye West. Or at least Kanye’s song “Stronger,” which prompted people to start gyrating to the beat and building into a 100-person flash mob right on the show floor. Can you think of a better stunt to promote your presence at the show? We can’t. Seriously. We just can’t. Cisco posted a video of the event, which got shared all over the place—not to mention the tweets that went out while the dance was happening. Love it. 

 

Exploiting the buzz around the ’12 presidential election, HBO organized a fake motorcade complete with actors playing secret-service agents that visited NYC, L.A. and DC. This creative stunt was part of an overall campaign that helped the S2 premiere attract 1.7mln viewers.

 

History created a living, breathing swamp within a 5600-sq-ft space at NYC’s Chelsea Market featuring live alligators, turtles, Cypress trees and other realistic touches. They even brought in 8K gallons of water! That’s commitment. Ratings for the S3 premiere was up 21% vs. S2.

 

ION hired the Michael Allen Group to devise a stunt highlighting ION’s “Positively Entertaining” tagline. What resulted was a fully branded mobile gingerbread house filled with gummy bears, chocolate kisses, peppermint sticks… OK, you had us at gingerbread.

 

A pop-up dance stunt featuring a wheelchair dance crew 4 days before the “Push Girls” premiere brought the show’s high-energy, inspirational vibe to 3 locations in NYC. It was quite a party, and it generated massive social media buzz and mainstream press. Awesome.