Publicity stunts

Publicity stunts have been happening most of human history and date back to the earliest one in 350 B.C.

Did you know that the potato once needed publicity stunts to make it popular in the late 1700s? A French pharmacist named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier gave out bouquets of potato flowers to the King and Queen of France, amongst other interesting actions (read more HERE).

What is a PR stunt?

Deliberately staging an event with WOW factor! This idea aims to get media attention, and people's attention and as a result, increases the awareness of something or someone. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to create a few PR stunts with different clients, resulting in coverage on Channel Ten News (Aust), CBS Los Angeles segment, CBS Los Angeles News, and other outlets. They are quite fun to create and require imagination and a budget.

Fun legendary stunts to read about

The History Channel has reported on 8 Legendary Publicity Stunts.

And I really enjoyed watching the coverage unroll when Hulu did an incredible stunt for The Handmaid's Tale. They had a group of women wearing long red dresses and white bonnets walking as if they were on the streets of the show. It was creepy and eye-catching. So, of course, the media reported on it. Here is a great article by Refinery29.

Creativity is key

“PR stunts require creativity and imagination."

A PR stunt allows the opportunity to get creative when coming up with ideas to get a message across. A publicity stunt is an event as they have many elements that must be planned; just like an event.

Not all publicity stunts are expensive... and at times, it might be better suited to do a PR stunt rather than host a PR event. Sometimes the situation presents itself with a client that you could create more media attention from a PR stunt than an event at a nice event space. Depending on the event producer, sometimes events can become same-same and oh so boring for the media. And even for the guests.

Trumpet Events are incredible at producing events that lean on publicity stunt and event. In fact, they have merged the two - book launches that also double up as PR stunts. Or major events in Melbourne and Australia nationally. If you are in Australia and thinking about making your PR fun with a publicity stunt, I highly recommend Xen and his dedicated team!