#13: On stunts
As we enter an era of marketing austerity, here's to hoping the old-school stunt goes away
I had a print journalism professor in college, upon learning that public relations majors also took his class, muttered publicists were nags and stuntmakers. The fact that yes, print journalism was still a class in 2008 was overshadowed by the spitting way he described an entire profession.
I don’t blame him: he was a scruffy local paper man licking his wounds from several newsroom cuts he blamed on Craigslist. He loved old movies and thought that he’d be meeting secret government sources in parking lots and aging like Dustin Hoffmann. Instead, he was teaching 19-year-olds what ledes were, and helping us understand why the 2008 financial crisis would “make your young lives suck for the next 20 years.” Again, he wasn’t wrong.
Fast forward a few years, in a stuffy conference room: my team and dozens of others are trying to win a client with our best, dreaded, recycled *stunt ideas*: flash mobs enhanced with AR; guerilla projections of the company’s logo on a competitor’s building; climate-focused hackathons on famous bridges to disrupt traffic; giant game shows in Times Square — and of course, a Guiness World Record (which is paid, by the way).
A certain generation of marketer always wants to see the ideas, though they rarely work or simply bomb. Some win awards, yes. But who cares? The examples are shoved in an art book given away at Cannes then dumped at Goodwill.
Stunts can be art and magic, too. In Joel Stein’s new podcast, he interviewed a journalist who lived his life like he was following the 1789 Constitution in the U.S., musket and all. There was a recent Slate experiment in which a writer says yes to every single PR email in one day, to fun results! And, another writes about what it was like to have a parody tweet enabled by Twitter Blue go viral. These kinds of stories can be a delight, a think, and point out the strangeness in our world.
But most importantly, a stunt can be a protest against perceived dark corporate forces. Soup, milk, glue and paint have been well-covered mechanisms in which people have drawn attention to climate change. And, we’ll see more of this kind of attention-seeking as The World Cup kicks off next week; what can you expect when beer is hard to find, on top of all the human rights violations? It’ll be interesting to see how, who and how much will get protested during this bizarro cultural event. Culture and commerce are at play — lots, and lots of commerce.
I hope, as our world becomes more polarized, and as the marketing industry becomes more austere, we as communicators and marketers pull away from flash and move towards substance, leaving the P.T. Barnum flair for causes that need it.
We need to reinvest in building trust, helping each other build products and societies that are resilient and sustainable — and creating work cultures that are supportive.
My favorite professors in college used to say what drew her to communications is that people in the role have the power to be the conscience of a company; to help important people do what was right and not necessarily profitable.
There’s no need to plan our campaigns around the Urban Dictionary definition of stuntin’, after all. There’s no need to show off when so many of us have been laid off.
Recommended reading
It’s been quite the week. Continued layoffs, especially in comms and marketing. I’ll be doing a series next week sharing profiles of people looking for their next role/client. Respond to this email if you want to learn more; I’d love to help.
I worry about what the vacuum of thousands of fired comms folks will do the already struggling DE&I work many companies were already underinvesting in. A former colleague wrote this helpful, actionable piece about Latinx experiences in Adweek that is food for thought for anyone who shares my same fear.
Parasocial, or one-way relationships, are becoming more and more normal in today’s influencer economy. Levar Burton Reads, one of my favorite podcasts, recently featured a twisted story playing with the concept.
Until next time, folks! Thanks again for subscribing and please feel free to pitch me ideas for future issues. And, if you’re in need of freelance comms and PR support, reply to this email.