Posts Tagged ‘stunt’

Yesterday’s failed Bayern Munich stunt was an ideal example of what happens when creative energy fails to connect with the reality of the media narrative. For those who didn’t hear, the German football team wrangled a piece of PR trickery which fuelled an horrific backlash.

An announcement on their website that “a spectacular name” was to sign for the club invited fans to watch the name’s unveiling on the team’s Facebook page.

Needless to say, an incredible amount of furore was generated and fans eagerly tuned in at the proposed time in their thousands. However, following a short video clip from FCB’s general manager Christian Nerlinger, fans were treated to a view of their own Facebook profile picture, followed by their own name on the back of a Bayern Munich number 8 shirt.

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The unmatchable Hollywood publicist, agent and stuntmaker Jay Bernstein has shown us all once again how a true publicity superstar does things with a fitting final stunt. The sadly deceased genius has defied having his inimitable profile smothered even by death himself, and has managed to release his book onto an unsuspecting public from beyond the grave. Anyone who cares at all about the art of truly inspirational PR, from understanding clients to launching groundbreaking stunts, should buy it. Right now.

Being a PR, I just can’t resist a quick plug: those looking to understand Bernstein’s remarkable talents could also do worse than investing in a copy of my book The Fame Formula. In it, I dissect, analyse and celebrate the incredible gift of Bernstein and his ilk for capturing the public, as well as understanding so well the stars they catapulted to fame with apparent ease. Their arts aren’t lost, but they are essential background reading for anyone seeking to make waves in the comparatively anodyne world of modern communications. In these uncertain days in the shadow of a certain Lord L, the lessons of the past have never been more pressing.

Bernstein was one of the absolute greats. Unmistakably, he was a true showman of the kind I’ve always admired. His stunts, which ranged from artificially stoking Tom Jones’s sex bomb reputation with hired pantie-throwers to holding his own-televised- wedding underwater, are now the stuff of legend. Like Jim Moran and other ancient heroes of mine, he was a fabulous ringmaster of publicity and pizazz.

However, for all the hype about him being the ‘inventor of the modern publicity stunt’, his greatest talent was far more subtle. While researching the Fame Formula, he was one of the figures I had the pleasure of interviewing during a stint across the pond. A gent and an enthusiast, he gave up his valuable time without complaint. Upon entering his house- formerly owned by Rita Hayward and site of the first Jacuzzi in Hollywood- my eyes were assailed by a remarkable collection of memorabilia. The place was filled with debris from his remarkable time in the industry.

As a hopeless collector myself I was excited by the sheer volume of it (and I particularly wonder what happened to his incredible collection of stuffed animals), but I was also impressed and touched: these deeply personal items were evidence of the highly developed bonds Bernstein had with his clients. His memories of each and every client were fond, full and nuanced. One particularly memorable moment involved him musing as to what John Wayne might have said if he’d been offered the script for Brokeback Mountain, just released at the time.

He took clients all the way, and each of the crazy stories he launched came from a place of deep thinking, considered strategy and mutual trust.

It strikes me that, while Jay’s stunts place him in the vein of ‘publicist’s publicist’, his relationships with clients offer up lessons to those in any line of work. Brand communications in any field can only work from a basis of deep mutual respect between those working within the brand and those pushing it out. Madness, controversy and conversation spring from narratives mutually developed and sculpted over years- Bernstein knew this, but I fear it’s something we’re starting to forget.

I’ve recently been running around on a kind of UK Tour, delivering a new presentation in Gateshead, Brighton and various locations in London for a range of industry events in between the rigours of my day-to-day duties.

One advantage of the thinking that goes in to this kind of offering is that along with the new ideas I discover and devise, I am reminded of some of my favourite pieces of wisdom. Amazing quotes and thoughts which get pushed to the back of my mind are suddenly thrust back in front of me- and my audiences- a couple of times a week.

One is from the great film-maker Jim Jarmusch, and it informs much of my thinking about modern communications: ‘Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Authenticity is invaluable, originality is non-existent’.

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The video of Polish politician Katarzyna Lenart stripping for votes has generated the kind of online buzz that other party political broadcasts (and I use the term in its loosest sense) could only dream of. Shot on what appears to be a pretty low grade camera and featuring a swivel chair that wouldn’t look out of place in the head office of a packaging company in Slough, it looks a bit like something you’d find on Babestation at 3am. Still, at least she doesn’t stoop to airbrushing.

The knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss this out of hand. It’s not just crazy, it’s obvious. Surely even the voyeuristic, big brother guzzling, internet porn fed, fetid mess of a world we live in wouldn’t fall for something so desperate. It may be getting watched, but it won’t win votes.

Having said that, futurology is a tricky discipline, especially in the fad happy world of politics. Perhaps Lenart’s dance is so mad that it works. Lord knows we’ve been waiting for something to kick off the ‘digital elections’ repeatedly promised- and denied- through campaign strategies over the past few years.

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It’s a great story for anyone who’s obsessed by the showmanship of selling:  Arch West, the great Frito-Lay marketing exec and inventor of Doritos, has been covered with his beloved chips in his final resting place. West came from a long line of great retail mavericks who had the fire and the guts to tap into the popular consciousness and then harness it instantly and recklessly, with scarcely a thought for the opinions of shareholders and other boring considerations. I know my banging on about the golden age of showmanship is something you see a lot on this blog, but I’m increasingly worried that we’re not going to see his like again.

What is it with snack moguls? First Fredrich Baur, retail genius and inventor of the iconic ‘Pringles’ can, had his ashes buried in one of his beloved crisp receptacles back in 2008, and now this fantastic news item from West, presumably a sight that roughly resembled Doritos’ stoner student target customer after a big night in. The real genius of the retail surpremo is represented by these almost mythic funerals: these were guys who truly lived the brand, who integrated their lives and their behaviour into what they were communicating. There is something unimaginably inspirational about these two men, who know who to grab column inches even from beyond the grave.

Their heritage is rich. When Gordon Selfridge came to London, he made a fortune out of the women’s lib movement by promoting luxury shopping as a lifestyle choice, a statement of freedom: he was unafraid to be a huge character and to consciously attract huge characters. He encouraged women to look at his freedom, to look at that of his wife, and to demand this for themselves via the medium of their wallets.

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For those who’ve not heard, a Saatchi & Saatchi campaign for client Toyota has led to a $10m suit being filed against the ad firm and the car company, as well as various individuals connected with the campaign.

The campaign, which allowed people to sign up their friends to be ‘pranked’ with a serious of worrying emails from one of 5 colourful fictional characters, was a bungled attempt by the Saatchi suits to make the world’s most boring car company look radical. This is a textbook example of why forging the brand narrative is best left to the publicists: the creative excellence of Ad Agencies does not extend to long form narrative content.

In other words, it was a textbook example of advertising as insular and irrelevant communication. Instead of seeking to connect with any true brand narrative or profile, the Saatchi & Saatchi team betrayed their arrogance and remained convinced of their idea of what the brand needed, irrespective of what people actually wanted.

Ad folk lack understanding of the psyche of the news agenda: unlike PRs, they aren’t programmed to anticipate the downside, to work the worst case scenario into the fibre of their strategy.

Amanda Duik, the woman suing the company, was apparently targeted over a week long period with emails- genuine, for all she knew- from a football hooligan character called ‘Sebastian Bowler’, who came complete with his own S&S-created myspace profile and other web-based proofs of existence. She reckons she experienced sufficient mental distress over the terrifying period to sue for massive damages from all involved.

Those who don’t follow my thoughts closely might be surprised that I’m condemning S&S for this: what differentiates it from the kind of stunts perpetrated by myself and my influences? It’s certainly not because I’ve decided to clamber onto my high horse.

When classic Hollywood movie publicist Jim Moran placed a lion in a motel room under the name ‘TR Zan’ to promote the release of a strikingly similarly named movie, he caused a good deal more distress than S&S have here.

However, his stunt did what good PR does: it tapped into the popular conversation and interwove the brand narrative with it. It spoke of wilderness and adventure, which was exactly right at a time when movies were reflecting the increasingly adventurous spirit of the American public. It had also involved significant calculation of risk, and understood that inevitable bad press would be absorbed by the whole daring nature of the thing.

In part it’s a question of money: ad firms, arguably, have too much. Insular ad campaigns are bred when teams have the time and the resources to ponder their angles until they’re warped out of all recognition, over-thought. PRs, by contrast, are fleet footed. Their spatial awareness of the publicity landscape is second to none because careers spent responding to repeated brand events in real-time have honed their instincts and trained them never to slip up.

It also adds weight to a pet theory of mine: of communications professionals, it’s the PRs who skew furthest to the right (creative) side of the brain. Rightbrained functions, both numerical and linguistic, are much more involved with the comparative, the contextual, the pragmatic. While the leftbrain has the advantage when rigorously pursuing a clear, single minded idea, it must be difficult to wrap a leftbrained mind around an idea as mutable and intangible as a brand narrative.

While I think that Duik is probably taking this rather too seriously, her lawsuit should come as a warning to ad folk everywhere. In the modern world, the hierarchy of ideas does not flow from the comms professionals to the public. Communications must be discursive, responsive, and above all, narrative. Nobody understands this better than a good PR.

Radiohead are back with a new album, The King of Limbs, and a development of the original stunt for their last album, In Rainbows, which was for sale on a ‘pay what you can afford’ basis.

Excitement has been amping up and up since the band announced the early digital download release of the album to the point where the media is saturated with information Read the rest of this entry »

Football’s back in the news, but this time it’s not about vast sums being splurged on footballers in the transfer market, it’s a stunt that raises awareness about the quality of food at your average sports match.

My local team, Forest Green, have a new chairman, CEO of Ecotricity Dale Vince. Vince is vegan – and he has just abolished all red meat products from being sold to punters during the match.

Out go meat pies, chips, curry sauce, sausages. In comes healthier food – though what exactly has yet to be announced. It’s likely to open up debate about the strange imbalance between watching men at peak fitness playing football whilst gorging on artery-clogging fast foods, positioning Dale Vince as the Jamie Oliver of the footballing world.

It’ll be interesting to see what vegetarian and vegan alternatives come in – veggie burgers never will quite cut the mustard in the eyes of hardcore footie fans. But the fight could well make for an interesting debate on the way people approach food in the football stands. Let’s wait and see if this makes its way up into the canteens of the Premier League.

Vince has lots of local interest and is building his brand locally. It’s fascinating to see the way Vince has taken his core values and woven them seamlessly into everything he does, from his green electricity company to a meat-free Forest Green Rovers. It has become a brand truth that instantly allows an audience to recognise what he and his companies stand for. It will be interesting to see how far he can take them.

And so the day has come! Prince William is to marry Kate Middleton. Be of good cheer, Britain, there’s new blood being drafted into the old firm!

It really is fabulous news, in such tough economic times, that the cuts will not affect everything. In 2011 there will be something for the whole nation to celebrate, especially the merchandise sellers, caterers and makers of bunting. It’s really an early Christmas present for them all.

And better still, it’ll take place 30 years after Charles and Diana’s wedding. We will have a new Princess of Hearts – and the same sort of economic straits then as now. Perhaps we’ll get anniversary riots in Brixton and Toxteth too, only to have the wedding calm them down.

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As the nights draw in faster and faster, it’s worth remembering that, 50 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock dreamed up two things that have defined the horror film industry ever since. The first was the film Psycho. The second was a publicity stunt for the film that was so successful that it has come back time and time again, in one form or another, to open other films. Because of its ubiquity, it doesn’t appear to be revolutionary anymore, but it was.

The stunt was simple; Hitchcock simply demanded that the audience be barred from entering the cinema after the film had started. Back then, people tended to wander into the cinema half way through a film and stay for the first reels of the next showing if they liked what they saw. Read the rest of this entry »