The Stunts Come Round Again

When I originally compiled the book “Improperganda: Art of the Publicity Stunt”, my research astounded me as I realized that a lot of what I had done over the past years in PR wasn’t original.  Similar things had been done before in some way, shape or form.  It was a case of innocent misunderstanding because of course, back then there wasn’t an internet, so you couldn’t readily find information like you can today. So it made me smile when I read an article today in the Daily Mail which caught my attention. It was about women drivers wearing high heels to die for, literally. The article focused on how high heels and other unsuitable foot ware can be extremely dangerous when driving. The women’s car insurer, “Sheila’s Wheels” commissioned the survey which showed that around 80% of female drivers wear inappropriate shoes while driving.  This came as no surprise to me as one of my consumer teams commissioned the same survey nearly two years ago for Norwich Union.

This was hot on the heels of an invitation sent yesterday to a multi media window installation at Superdrug on Kensington High Street.  It comprises a female pop group “as you’ve never seen them before”, as a hologram.  But I’ve seen this before in August 2005, when Virgin launched Virgin Digital and Borkowski had Richard Branson appear at the launch as a hologram.

In turn, I’m not suggesting that these people have stolen my ideas, but it’s amazing to see similar surveys and stunts in such a short space of time.  There was so much coverage on the survey Borkowski commissioned for Norwich Union, that I wonder whether the media will continue to pick up on these similar ideas if they spring up with this frequency in the future.