Advertising Hoaxes

Hunting for Bambi (hopefully final update) — So I think it's finally official that Hunting for Bambi is a hoax, a publicity stunt done to sell videos. Isn't it wonderful that public attention gets focused on things like this rather than, oh, poverty, hunger, education, etc.?
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003.   Comments (0)

Hunting for Bambi Update — It's looking more and more like Hunting for Bambi is a hoax. George Evanthes, the man who claimed to have paid to go on a Bambi hunt, is now being denounced as a shill by his friends. And the Hunting for Bambi company is claiming that it can no longer hold any Bambi Hunts because all the potential customers have been scared away by negative publicity. Seems like a convenient excuse.
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003.   Comments (0)

More about Hunting for Bambi — Suspicions that Hunting for Bambi is a hoax seem to be growing. If the company is for real then it should be easy enough for them to prove it. Show that you're signing people up for new 'hunts.' Produce the accounting records to prove that you've taken people's money for hunts in the past. But of course they won't do that. These hoaxes always work the same way. Stall and delay for as long as possible while you milk the controversy for all the publicity you can get. KLAS-TV, the Las Vegas station that originally aired the story, discovered that the company behind Hunting for Bambi, only has a business license that allows it to sell videos, not to operate a sexually-oriented business nor to run paintball games. So if they are actually doing this, they're doing it without the proper licenses.
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2003.   Comments (0)

Hunting for Bambi — Is 'Hunting for Bambi' a hoax? In case you somehow missed it (hiding under a rock, or something), Hunting for Bambi is supposedly a company that for $10,000 will let guys hunt naked women with a paintball gun in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The company got some local TV coverage, and then the larger news outlets picked up on the story, initiating a media frenzy. But based on the emails I've been getting, a lot of people are suspicious about the company's claims. After all, exactly how does one sign up to go on one of these Bambi-hunting expeditions? That doesn't seem to be clear since the company isn't responding to most inquiries. What I would guess is that there are no Bambi-hunting trips. That would involve just too many legal problems. But the company is offering a video for sale, and members of the public can definitely buy that. I suspect that the company is just pretending to offer the 'hunts' as a way to generate a lot of publicity and sell the video (and the other merchandise they're offering). The whole scheme is reminiscent of something like Ron's Angels, which got a lot of publicity back in 1999 because it claimed to be selling the eggs of supermodels to infertile couples. That all turned out to be a hoax to promote a pornographic web site. I could be wrong about Hunting for Bambi, but I'll wait for them to provide more evidence of the truth of their claims before I change my mind.
Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2003.   Comments (0)


Antennalopes — antennalopeIf you go to the movies this summer, you just might be lucky enough to see footage of this intriguing tall-tale creature: the Antennalope. These creatures (antelopes with antennae on their heads) are "bred to instantly relay radio signals as they frolic." They constantly roam the country in herds, instinctively migrating to where radio signals are weakest, thus helping to make possible a truly mobile national phone network. The antennalopes are featured in ads for Nextel that play before movies. They appear to be related to the Jackalope.
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2003.   Comments (0)

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2003.   Comments (0)

National Blonde Day — Oops. I forgot that yesterday was National Blonde Day, so designated by the Blonde Legal Defense Club. The day is designed to promote respect for the intelligence and accomplishments of blondes. In reality, it's a publicity stunt for the Legally Blonde movie.
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003.   Comments (0)

Misleading Ad — Here's another case of the underlying reality of what an ad is showing being out of sync with the message the ad is trying to deliver. A Canadian campaign commercial shows a shot of a smiling family accompanied by a voice over that says, "I want a premier who believes what I believe." But the family shown is an American family from Oregon. Oops.
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2003.   Comments (0)

Spoof Ads — The Globe and Mail argues that many of the spoof ads going around recently are actually inside jobs created by the companies being spoofed.
Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2003.   Comments (0)

Subliminal Advertising in Russia — The LA Times reports that subliminal advertising is still widely used in Russian ads, even though the whole concept was revealed to be a hoax back in the 1960s. (Requires registration).
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2002.   Comments (0)

I Am Turok — Here's a strange publicity stunt: a London company is seeking five people who are willing to officially change their name to Turok for one year. These people will then be walking, talking billboards helping to spread the word about the X-Box game called 'Turok: Evolution.'
Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2002.   Comments (1)

The Case of the Keyspan Ad — Another case of a hoax photo. The KeySpan Corp. ran an ad showing some Long Island fishermen in order to show its deep ties with the Long Island community. The only problem was that the picture of the fishermen was actually taken in Seattle, which was obvious since they were holding up King Salmon, which aren't found around Long Island.
Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002.   Comments (0)

Advertising Gone Awry — A strange case of a prank gone awry. Two men rushed onto the field during a rugby match wearing nothing but the logo of Vodafone, a mobile phone company. The logo was painted on their backs. Amazingly, Vodafone had actually approved the stunt. The presence of the streakers caused one of the players to miss a penalty kick. On the subject of odd forms of 'guerrilla marketing,' here's a website that claims it will connect you with corporations who are willing to pay you to wear a tattoo of their corporate logo. They're called tADoos. It's a hoax, of course. But it's not original. NPR presented this exact scenario as an April Fool's Day joke back in 1994.
Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2002.   Comments (0)

The Crying Indian — The "Crying Indian" was a fake! The guy who starred in all those "Keep America Beautiful" ads during the 1970s turns out not to have had a single drop of Native American blood in him, despite his claims to the contrary. He was actually an Italian-American named Oscar DeCorti.
Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2002.   Comments (6)

Guerrilla Marketing — The Wall Street Journal reports on the new trend in 'guerrilla marketing.' Hired actors and actresses (though not famous ones) will be paid to use products in trendy places where the use of the product will be seen by a lot of people. So now if you notice someone talking on a new cell phone next to you, you'll have to wonder if the person is for real or just an actor.
Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2002.   Comments (0)

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