Outlandish Publicity Stunts; Kidnapped Band Members, etc.

Sure, the world has seen its fair share of crazy, whacky, successful and unsuccessful publicity stunts over the last decade or so; but I'm here to shed light on my personal favorites (both the good and the ugly) and evaluate why they worked or didn't.

1) Fall Out Boy's Citizen's For Our Betterment Campaign - Fall Out Boy fanboys&girls now know this as the precursor to the band's 2008 album, Folie à Deux. Fall Out Boy's record label, Decaydance, was apparently "hacked" by a mysterious group called Citizens For Our Betterment on August 18th, 2008. The website featured clues, sign-up newsletter lists and clues/links all over. Additionally, Pete Wentz's now wife Ashlee Simpson was seen carrying around pamphlets for CFOB. Fans of the band went crazy over this viral marketing, especially when the newsletter e-mailed the signees a mixtape featuring remixed and new songs that would later appear on Folie.

Grade and Why: A-. Fall Out Boy is where they are because Pete Wentz knows how to market his pop punk band. He knows how to reel in fans and mix things up. Fans got a reward and nobody was hurt or offended in the process. Great work.

2) Donald Trump "buying" WWE - I don't watch wrestling anymore, though I must admit I loved the days of WCW's NWO and WWF's DX. However, my roommate and I tuned in last year for Monday Night Raw to find out that Donald Trump had "bought" the world's most popular wrestling organization and planned to make it commercial free. This went on for about a week before Trump decided to "sell back" the company to original owner and popular wrestling foe, Vince McMahon.

Grade and Why: B. Okay, any time Donald Trump's name is involved, you can bet that it's going to make headlines. However, wrestling is the most fake industry in the history of the world when it comes to story and plot lines, so viewers were able to smell this one coming from a mile away. Either way, the WWE became slightly more relevant to non-wrestling viewers for about a weeks worth of time.

3) Then Up & Coming Band, Endicott, and their 2004 Kidnapping Scandal - Readers of this blog, and hell, 99.9% of the world, have never heard of the band Endicott. However, I remember them solely for their ridiculous publicity stunt back in 2004. The band had their record label release a press release claiming that they had all been kidnapped and were MIA.

Grade and Why: F. Ok, if U2 had tried this, it would have been national news; whether the public would have responded positively or negatively to the "reveal" is to be determined. While the whole thing was obviously a joke, it was formatted in official manner and was the equivalent of a comedian failing to deliver the punchline. The point is, nobody knew who Endicott were and nobody really cared. Furthermore, it was very obviously completely fake. It wasn't breaking news (as it would have been if a band of five 20-year olds had actually been kidnapped) so nobody believed the source to be credible. In the fledgling years of a bands life, they should refrain from ridiculous stunts that can be perceived as offensive or fake, simply because that was the label they ended up having after only about a month or two on their popular indie-rock label, Equal Vision Records. They ended up fading into obscurity and will likely stay there for the rest of eternity. Quite sad, but you can't feel too bad; if their music was actually worthwhile, they might have survived, but the combination of terrible music and terrible promotion sunk them deeper than sea-life bottom feeders. A copy of the band's unsuccessful release can be found here.

-RB