Taco Bell rings in new age of publicity stunts
Published on 05/20/1996 under Potpourri
Given the consistently gloomy predictions and play-it-safe pronouncements over the past several years, I had pretty much decided that Corporate America had totally lost its nerve, not to mention its sense of humor. That was, of course, before Taco Bell unloaded its massive April Fools' Day joke on the country.
What a coup! What guts! Such creative timing! Frankly, I can't recall a single publicity stunt that accomplished so much positive exposure with so little effort and expense.
It serves to remind us all of the cost-effective power of a professionally planned public relations event. Especially one with bold spirit and fearless timing.
In case you were out of town, Taco Bell ran ads April 1 in seven major newspapers announcing the purchase of the Liberty Bell in order to help reduce the federal budget deficit. (Never mind that the Liberty Bell is actually owned by the City of Philadelphia.)
Full page ads appeared in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Dallas, plus USA TODAY proudly announcing the Liberty Bell purchase and urging other corporations to do likewise. Ad copy noted that the bell would be renamed the "Taco Liberty Bell" and rotated for public viewing between its traditional home in Philadelphia and Taco Bell's corporate headquarters in Irvine, CA.
Naturally, that lit up phone lines in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. Over 2,000 calls were made to Taco Bell's customer service hotline. Radio call-in shows all over the country were buzzing with the news.
With corporate sponsorships in vogue for just about anything these days, it seemed as plausible as it was absurd.
Finally, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (1:00 p.m. EST), a news release was issued by Taco Bell confessing to the hoax and announcing a $50,000 donation for restoration of the Liberty Bell.
Meanwhile, White House spokesman Mike McCurry was advancing the ruse one step further by suggesting that Ford Motor Company adopt the Lincoln Memorial and rename it the Lincoln Mercury Memorial (after extensive refurbishing, of course).
It was all in good fun. Even those quickly angered had to crack a smile when they realized the prank. Chicago Tribune columnist Richard Roeper referred to these citizens as Outraged People Who Have Too Much Time On Their Hands.
By evening, Tom Brokaw was describing the stunt on NBC Nightly News. The next morning, the mayor of Philadelphia was challenging Taco Bell's marketing manager on CBS Morning News to come up with more cash than $50,000. "That's good for a few tacos," he said, "but we want the whole enchilada," referring to a new pavilion the city wished to construct.
Taco Bell is still trying to measure the impact. According to Laurie Gannon, associate manager for public relations, over 400 TV mentions were logged, including virtually every major metro market. Add this to thousands of newspaper stories and radio mentions, and you've got total exposure for Taco Bell worth many millions of dollars for a media cost of $300,000 or so.
In preparing this column, I looked through dozens of books on public relations, including one titled Publicity Stunt! (Wink Books, 1989) and one titled Media Hoaxes (Iowa State University Press, 1989). I could find nothing even close to the Taco Bell event, but I did discover dozens of delightful pranks that were considered very successful in their day.
Remember Blazing Saddles, the zany 1974 movie by Mel Brooks? A publicist named Marty Weiser dreamed up the idea to have a special screening at an outdoor, drive-in theater for people on horseback only! He placed a small ad in the Los Angeles Times and tacked flyers on trees in nearby parks hoping somebody (anybody) would show up. Over 250 riders and their horses completely filled the theater, generating worldwide coverage for the movie.
In this case, the promotion was almost as crazy as the product itself.
I was also reminded of the delightful 40-year promotion for Ivory Soap, invented by famed P.R. man Edward Bernays for Procter & Gamble. Bernays persuaded P&G to launch an annual "soap sculpture" event in which people were asked to carve things out of blocks of Ivory Soap.
It grew into an event that generated thousands of entries and prompted photos to run in virtually every newspaper in America, plus "how-to-carve" articles and related human interest stories. At one point, the entire 65th floor of the Rockefeller Center in New York was rented to display the entries. In its first month, more than 50,000 visitors passed through the soap sculpture exhibit.
If you spend any time at all studying publicity stunts, you'll find hundreds of local events, like flag pole sitters, attempts at making the "world's largest" whatever and animals dressed up in various costumes. They're interesting and funny, but they don't compare to the Taco Bell effort.
The Taco Bell program was carried off with military precision, using state-of-the-art satellite technology and top-notch professionalism. But the most impressive aspect of the Liberty Bell gag was its audaciousness.
This was Big Thinking of the highest caliber, and I commend the Taco Bell public relations and marketing departments, as well as their forward-thinking CEO, John Martin, for giving it a shot.
Too many corporate practitioners these days are thinking small and cautious. Maybe this promotion will ring in a new era of Big Time public relations activities. At least, we should be willing to take a crack at it.