PR Coups and Capers

Major hits and flops in Public Relations.

You win some, and you lose some -- sometimes in a very big and public way.

Those of us in our seniority or fans of rerun TV might recall WKRP's classic publicity stunt: 

Thanksgiving shoppers in a department store parking lot were pelted with live turkeys dropped from a hovering helicopter. ("I didn't know turkeys couldn't fly!" said Herb Tarlek, the dumbstruck radio marketing wiz.) Talk about a PR bomb.

We don't need to rely on sitcoms for astonishing PR hits and misses. The real world provides plenty, thank you very much.

• Taco Bell was right on target when the Russian space station Mir dropped from the sky. The company scored a media coup by setting up a bulls-eye in the Pacific Ocean with the Taco Bell logo dead center, offering a free taco for each and every American if Mir should hit the mark. Of course the odds against having to actually pay out were astronomical (sorry). But the media play on the stunt was wide: network television, and even a front-page above-the-fold photo of the Taco Bell target in my city newspaper.
  
  
• New Line Cinema received some critical snorts for plugging its release of the drug-trafficking movie Blow by handing out small mirrors as a publicity gimmick. The pocket-size mirrors, perfect for restroom toots of cocaine, did not reflect well on the company as drug rehabilitators blasted New Line for its bad taste.