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Street stunts captured by citizens with camera phones and posted online to become viral campaigns are a new, engaging form of brand advertising, writes BusinessWeek, calling the tactic “the Golden Age of the street corner gimmick.”
Witness the McDonald’s billboard that went up in July in Chicago, which included a specially engineered sundial that highlighted different menu items with a Golden Arches shadow as the day progressed: when a photo of the billboard was posted on Chicagobusiness.com, the picture was sent all over the internet. Within two weeks, the photo had been viewed 105,000 times on that site alone.
Another clever stunt saw a steaming manhole cover dressed as a cup of coffee for Folgers, created by Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, photos of which landed in New York-themed blogs and eventually in the New York Post.
While the stunts may be witty in the offline world, they often last for a far shorter period of time than they do online., the article points out. The Folger’s manhole cover tactic, for example, was only in place for a few hours, as they couldn’t get permission from the city for more.
More on PR stunts:
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