In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event or something unusual designed to attract people's attention to a particular brand, product, or organization. In Modern advertising, it can also mean a one-off created by an advertising agency to be submitted to an award show. Advertising stunts have become quite popular at award shows since the 2000s.
At first, traditionalist ad people sneered at stunts, accusing them of not addressing a particular client's briefing or business challenge. However, others viewed them as a way to express creativity free from clients' tight and limiting briefings. Soon, they got traction, and everybody joined the bandwagon.
Finding its golden age with the evolution of social media-powered viralization, stunts transcended from the realms of advertising and public relations into pop culture.
The most important metric in today's society is popularity, and nothing better than clever stunts to rank trending topics. Being a one-off doesn't matter; after all, trending topics change in the speed of light. Like news cycles, they are designed to stick as long as the next.
As a natural result, stunt people started to pop everywhere, even forging a new type of business persona. Following Richard Branson's steps, a stuntman trendsetter, Elon Musk soon realized the importance of creating tricks to get people's attention and promote his disruptive business and often questionable personal brand.
"Elon Musk just launched our earthshaking new adventure" – this is a 2018 actual CNN headline – and it is a perfect example of how Musk got the world's attention to Tesla and Space X at in one single stroke.
On a side comment, watching the Testa Roadster playing Bowie's "Starman" on the speaker might have sounded clever, but David Bowie deserved better.
What might have looked like a stroke of genius could possibly have been inspired by another previous famous stunt.
In 2013, in the Red Bull's Stratos brand activation, the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgarten jumped from a balloon from the edge of space. The highly successful marketing PR stunt – 9.5 million people viewed it live on YouTube – went on to win a Sports Emmy® Award in the category of "Outstanding New Approaches Sports Event Coverage." It was an exciting crossover from being a natural contender to an advertising festival to winning a coveted National Academy of Television Arts and Science award.
The seed was planted; marketing stunts are newsworthy, and advertising content is as good as any other entertainment content. It is a dramatic shift to how brands can play in the news and entertainment arena. It highlights the brands' increasing power to influence the news, business, and popular culture.
Last week Jeff Bezos – who is in a highly publicized competition with Elon Musk for the world's richest man position and 21st space maverick – entered the Stunt arena with a blast.
"William Shatner, 90, Set to fly with Jeff Bezos" said the Daily Beats last week, announcing the billionaire's Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launch. Shatner, the Star Trek icon, boldly went where no man has gone before while simultaneously beaming up Bezos to the top of the news.
It wasn't Bezos's first foray in the stunt space, thought.
"Jeff Bezos went to space, and all we got was this cowboy hat," it was the Seattle Times' headline last July about the New Shepard capsule launch. The New York Times said, "When Jeff Bezos flew off in his rocket, he became the international (interstellar?) symbol of the male in midlife crisis." Jamiroquai, the original space cowboy, might have cringed.
The widespread backlash was immediate. Some accused the billionaire of being tone-deaf for spending millions of dollars on his joy ride while the world is still struggling with the effects of a global pandemic. Others simply couldn't resist making fun of the rocket's eh... curious shape. Someone said on Twitter, "Men will literally launch themselves into space in a penis rocket instead of going to therapy."
With a combined network of over 400 billion dollars– it is disturbing to watch them engaging in a public competition for the world's attention. But it is worse to think that that type of publicity is actually good for business. Apparently, it is. Bezos's wealth has increased by $79.4 billion since 2020. The Tesla and SpaceX chief's net worth has skyrocketed an incredible 540%, from about $27 billion in early January 2020 to more than $170 billion in April 2021. To put things in perspective, to prevent the next pandemic, studies show it would cost $22 billion a year. It is a stark contrast to the $79 billion Bezos amassed only in 2020. Worth mentioning that according to IRS records, both billionaires have a history of avoiding paying federal taxes. Speaking of pulling a stunt!
But their public match is the ultimate stunt. And Bezos and Musk's stunts have succeeded in attracting the media's attention and increasing their businesses value. But although it's entertaining to watch two grown-up men regressing to a juvenile size competition, it is sad to see that the richest men in the world publicly acting like buffoons. Well, we joke about them, and they pass the hat. It isn't very uplifting; instead, it looks like they are taking off while we are all going down.