Kick Butt Publicity

By Paul Hartunian

Okay, buckle up and hang on, because we're in for a wild ride here. This is the "no holds barred" version of the many web sites out there on how to get free or almost free top quality publicity.

We're going to talk about people like George Evans. He was hired by a relatively unknown Las Vegas lounge singer to try and create a publicity campaign for him. As he watched his client in action, he saw a woman walk up and place a red rose on the stage at his feet from a bouquet she was carrying. That sparked an idea. Evans hired a group of girls at five dollars each to act like mad fans. They practiced swooning and yelling in the basement of the Paramount Hotel and Casino and then showed up for the show. Jack Keller, one of Evans' associates, describes what happened:

"We hired girls to scream when he sexily rolled a note. The dozen girls we hired to scream and swoon did exactly as we told them. But hundreds more we didn't hire screamed even louder. Others squealed, howled, kissed his pictures with their lipsticked lips, and kept him a prisoner in his dressing room between shows at the Paramount. It was wild, crazy, completely out of control."

And it soon made Frank Sinatra famous.

Padding an audience is a gimmick as old as gathering a crowd. Insiders told us about rallies where plants in the audience were ready to come forward when the barker asked for donations. "Who will give $1000?" he'd ask, and immediately someone would come forward. Then a second, then a third. Suddenly your $5 donation didn't sound like much. Everybody got into the bidding business. Everybody wanted to outdo everybody else. What nobody knew was that pretty much every donation over $500 had actually been made by plants carrying supplied money. It was just a way to create a frenzy.

Ethical? No. Something I recommend you do? No, but it got powerful results.

Studies showed that more than half of most of the rioters back in the 60's peace movements usually had no idea why they were there. Their friends all felt this was worth marching for, so, what the heck, it must be.

The first step to kick butt publicity is to establish a frenzy. Somehow make everybody think what you're offering is the "in thing" to do. Get some of the trendsetters involved. Make the crowd want to follow. If you think about it, the fact that 9 out of 10 dentists recommend a certain brand could mean little more than the fact that the toothpaste manufacturers promoted their product correctly or the 10 dentists surveyed were carefully picked out. But we don't really care. If the majority is moving in that direction, then our tastes and the general research involving the product don't matter. We're following the crowd. And the press is sure to take note.

Or you can be outrageous. Most magicians generally agree that Harry Houdini wasn't that much better than most of his contemporaries. But he was a good publicist. He would do death-defying stunts just before opening night to his shows and crowds would swamp the theater. A magician friend of mine is willing to admit that the Water Torture Chamber he made famous as the "most dangerous trick in the world" is actually very simple to do. Any kid with 5 minutes of instruction can do it, but to this day the media is swamping theaters around the world every time a magician is "bold enough" to attempt the "most dangerous trick in the world". In the outrageous category there have been pole sitters and living billboards (where a crew actually stayed on the billboard, living in a small house or tent.

One of these outrageous press agents was a guy by the name of Jim Moran. He knew how to create a story. He appeared once on a talk show where the two hosts got into an argument as to whether California or Florida sun offered the best suntan. Moran offered to find out. He designed a costume that included a long sleeved shirt and pants that were cut directly in half. He also purchased a full head plastic mask and split it down the middle. For a week he lounged on a Florida beach, tanning one half of his body. The next week he put on the other half of his outfit and sat out in California. The media was all over it. For a month or so, Jim Moran was the news. Companies lined up to pay for pictures of him holding "California Orange Juice" with his "California" side. The departments of tourism for both states spent inordinate amounts of money trying to prove their halves were better. In short, by just sitting out on the beach, Moran netted thousands in publicity fees and became a national celebrity. Of course, Moran was no stranger to publicity stunts. You could count on him to be behind anything that would draw a crowd. He was hired to promote the movie "The Egg and I". To do so, he put on a waistband plumed with ostrich feathers and sat on an ostrich egg until it hatched. During incubation he charged visitors fifty cents each to come view him in action. According to records, more than 1500 people filed by daily, and the national press ate it up. When his egg hatched, Moran sent out cigars and birth announcements to all the media outlets.

Capturing the imagination of the general public is a sure ticket to kick butt publicity. I made a fortune by selling tiny chips of wood. The trick was, the wood was actually quite special. It came from the discarded walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge. For under $15 you could buy your own piece of the Brooklyn Bridge. I had media crews from as far off as Japan lining up to do interviews of this "strange guy" who actually was selling the Brooklyn Bridge. And people around the world visualized a nice, framed certificate with a chip of wood on it above their mantelpiece announcing that they owned a piece of the bridge.

But you don't have to get that elaborate to make the press. There are restaurants that cut off your tie and then display them on the walls if you walk in wearing one. There are places where the waiters sing to you. Patch Adams certainly got his share of free publicity for his Gesundheit Institute in West Virginia by donning a clown nose and doing things differently. Becoming news is about becoming interesting. It's about finding things about your profession the average person on the street would like to hear about. It's about creating angles that entice readers to buy newspapers or drivers to turn up their radios.

Once you know what it is about your particular business that sets you apart from the rest, then you're ready to get started in your quest for free publicity. It all begins by you telling the media about yourself. You need a press release that makes a program manager or news editor put their coffee down and start reading. If you need help here, go to www.PressReleasesMadeEasy.com. If you'd like an extensive explanation of what's involved in creating a winning publicity campaign, get information about my complete do-it-yourself publicity kit at www.MillionDollarPublicity.com. It contains everything you'll ever need to easily run your own powerful, exciting, profitable publicity campaigns.

If you come up with a solid angle that sets you apart from the crowd, there's a good chance reporters will ring your phone. But there's nothing wrong with letting them know what's going on. Professional advertising and publicity agencies do it all the time.

Want to find out more about how publicity can help you? Click on the links on the left side of this page.

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