High Risk, High Return Marketing Stunts
Business is about taking calculated risks and while some risky stunts have paid huge dividends, just as many have ended with huge losses. We’re going to take a look at a couple of bold (and utterly stupid) marketing promotions, though in one instance, we’re going to see how the utterly stupid actually was more intelligent than it first appeared!
Hoover and the Great Air Travel Giveaway
The UK company promotions people came up with an offer which was just too good to be true, except it was true. For British customers who spent more than £100 (about $160) on their products, they were given a free pair of round-trip tickets to a European destination, and remember this was before the era of cheap air travel. The response was lukewarm despite the offer, so the marketing gurus decided to widen the promotion to include tickets to the US.
At this point, the promotion literally took off – several hundred thousand customers bought Hoover products, principally vacuum cleaners, not because they wanted the merchandise but because the plane tickets themselves cost several hundred pounds.
The demand was so huge, Hoover couldn’t supply the product demand but in any event this didn’t matter. A bean counter realized the company couldn’t afford the huge numbers of plane tickets the promotion entailed.
Court battles ensued in the UK and US (with Maytag, the Hoover parent) and ended with the UK company having to be sold to clear the debt.
“Buy our product and we’ll give away the company” is not a strategy for business success, but Hoover is the number one brand of vacuum cleaner in the UK today. A case of the operation was a success but the patient died!
JMP Creative
Business risk is not usually associated with putting your life on the line, but magician, Jim McCafferty did just that when he set up his new marketing agency, JMP Creative.
McCafferty decided to throw a grand-opening concert with a Houdini-like, death-defying stunt. Put into a straitjacket and shut into a welded-shut cage, he was lifted to over 300 feet with a timer attached to release the retaining cable. With gravity set to send the apparatus crashing back down to earth in two short minutes, McCafferty had to release himself from his lofty perch before gravity played its part.
This is where the stunt started to go wrong; no matter where or who you are, gravity always works, but the plan to escape in time didn’t. The cage presented too much of a challenge and with 10 seconds to spare, McCafferty climbed onto the cage roof and attempted to get into the safety harness just as the timer released the cable. The cage and McCafferty started plummeting to the ground and he only managed to get into the safety harness 60 feet up leaving the cage to smash into the ground.
The crowd went wild, even while McCafferty was loaded onto a stretcher and carted off to hospital with severe rope burns. One spectator, thinking this was still all part of the act quipped, “That fall was brilliant, it scared the living daylights out of everyone!” McCafferty didn’t miss a beat and replied, “Yeah, but just imagine what I can do for your brand.”
Today, JMP Creative is a multi-million dollar media and marketing agency – high return for the highest risk possible.
