Article Advertising
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Bill and Mike Veeck Baseball Showmen
Type: Sports Summary: Father and son Bill and Mike Veeck revolutionized baseball with their wild and wacky stunts. Posted by: Elliot Feldman Between 1946 and 1979, Bill Veeck owned the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Browns, and the Chicago White Sox (twice). But Veeck was best known for bringing promotional…
Brazilian Invisible Fish
Type: Publicity Stunt. Summary: Crowds are lured to view an invisible fish. Harry Reichenbach (1882-1931) was a publicist whose career spanned the early twentieth century. He was responsible for promoting many movies and show business personalities. In his autobiography Phantom Fame (written with the help of David Freedman), Reichenbach described…
Cesky Sen Hypermarket
Type: Hoax. Summary: Shoppers were promised a store that was too good to be true. In early 2003 advertisements began to appear throughout Prague promoting a new hypermarket called Cesky Sen (or “Czech Dream") opening soon in the Lethany Fairgrounds. The ads appeared on billboards, at bus stops, in newspapers,…
David Manning
Type: Fake testimonial. Summary: A movie reviewer who consistently gave rave reviews turned out not to exist. No matter how bad the movies of Columbia Pictures were, there was always one reviewer who was sure to heap lavish praise on them. That was David Manning of the Ridgefield Press. For…
Kidnapping of Nicole Riche
Type: Publicity Stunt. Summary: A French actress disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She later claimed she had been kidnapped by “Puritans” who lectured her about her immoral life. Nicole RicheAt 3 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, April 1, 1950 the 22-year-old French actress Nicole Riche (no relation to Nicole Richie)…
Microsoft iLoo
Type: Hoax that was not a hoax. Summary: Microsoft announced that it intended to create the world’s first internet-enabled toilet. On April 30, 2003, MSN UK, a division of Microsoft, issued a press release announcing the imminent introduction of the iLoo, the world’s first internet-enabled port-a-potty. The introduction of this…
Miss Perfect Profile
Type: Publicity Stunt. Summary: The head of a modeling agency invented phony titles to promote his models. Newspapers and magazines like to print pictures of attractive young women, especially if the pictures are vaguely newsworthy. For instance, if the woman has just been awarded a title such as “Miss Congeniality,”…
Nazi Air Marker Hoax
Type: Overzealous press-agentry. Summary: Random patterns in fields were mistaken for Nazi “air markers.” On August 10, 1942, the U.S. Army’s public-relations office released a statement informing the press that fliers for the First Ground Air Support Command had discovered “secret markers” in rural areas of the east coast. These…
September Morn
Type: Alleged publicity stunt. Summary: Publicist Harry Reichenbach claimed that a phony protest engineered by him helped “September Morn” become one of the most famous paintings in the world. This is shown not to be the case. The French painter Paul Chabas completed “September Morn” in early 1912. The painting…
Sibuxiang Beast
Type: Advertising Hoax. Summary: Chinese advertisement warning TV viewers to beware of the Sibuxiang Beast is mistaken as a real warning and causes mass panic. On the evening of September 19, 1994 a stark warning was repeatedly broadcast to TV viewers in Taiyuan, a city in northern China. A message…
Subways Are For Sleeping
Advertisement for Subways Are For Sleeping that ran in the New York Herald-Tribune. In 1961 an advertisement appeared in the New York Herald-Tribune for a Broadway play titled “Subways Are For Sleeping.” The play had not been doing very well at the box office. Nevertheless, judging by the ad, it…
Taco Liberty Bell
Type: April Fool’s Day Hoax. Summary: Taco Bell claimed it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. On April 1, 1996 a full page ad appeared in six major American newspapers (The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News,…