6. Start the buzz engine.
Remember, a PR stunt without the PR is like a tree falling in the woods that no one hears. That's useless to both you and your client. In the Mafia Wars campaign, the explosion was just one slice of a diverse multimedia campaign. To bring a broader audience to the online segment – which took place on the Mafia Wars website and on Facebook – Davis Elen planted street teams in four cities to do "wild postings," or put up authorized graffiti posters. That included stickers of $25,000 bills on the ground with a QR code that would direct interested passers-by to the Mafia Wars site if scanned with a handheld device. "We've also been wild posting on people's cars fake bullet holes. In San Francisco, a couple saw from their second-story window the bullet hole, and called the police," Moranville says. "And I put one up in the Vegas airport when I got off the plane." On top of this, the two armored vehicles staffed with actors depicting a gangster and a sultry redheaded woman, are used as mobile advertising. The actor-employees hand out fliers, as well as Mafia War sunglasses and hats.
7. Integrate your real-world marketing approach online.
For Mafia Wars and Davis Elen, the explosion was woven into the game's online presence. "The most inspiring piece of this to me, creatively and otherwise is that Zynga has allowed us to work directly with their game developers," Moranville says. "We actually wrote the concept of destroy the car to get rid of the evidence right into the game. The Mafia Wars team grasped onto it wholeheartedly." Not only that, but the agency also promoted the game by announcing the blast would show live on Ustream.tv. That's on top of traditional radio and online advertising to target demographics. "Integrated marketing is easy to say, but not so easy to do," Moranville says.
8. Hire pyrotechnics and demolition specialists.
"We were hoping to get MythBusters involved with us so they'd do a show," Moranville says, a move that would have saved the companies the expenses of hiring pyrotechnics specialists. "In the meantime, we started looking into different detonations and different companies that obliterate things." Turns out, Los Angeles has quite a variety of companies that detonate blasts for hire. Moranville picked a company in Burbank called WESTefx, which had worked with special effects and blast technology in Apollo 13, Transformers, and Batman. The first thing Davis Elen learned was their armored truck … didn't actually need to be armored. It was stripped of a lot of the interior weight, including armor, engine, and interior detailing. Blasting caps were added to the interior of all the doors, so at detonation each flies 20 or 30 feet. The truck was filled with artificial money, also rigged to blast away at the first explosion. Mortars were affixed to the bottom of the truck so the entire vehicle would rocket about 25 feet in the air before landing on its nose. Finally, WESTefx engineered a compound of black powder, diesel fuel and gasoline, and set it to explode last – so the truck erupted in a massive orange ball of flames. (Fun fact: Diesel gives a cinematic fireball its warm orange glow.) Four WESTefx employees were on hand during the blast. Total cost: $35,000.
9. Call the cops.
When there's fire, there should be fire officials. And an EMT. And some hired police. The number of officials you'll need to hire depends on geography and how many civilians will be nearby the stunt. In this case, where about 75 people would be present, Moranville needed between two and four Fire Marshalls, between four and six hired law enforcement agents, and an EMT. Total cost: Less than $10,000.
10. Ensure a smooth count-down.
By 48 hours out from your publicity stunt, Moranville advises you have everything planned down to the minute – and focus on either doing exactly what you're scheduled to or fixing any unforeseen snags. Keep in mind there's everything from catering to crowd control to transportation to keeping one eye on your online synchronization to manage, so you'll want to spread around the duties. "First and foremost, do as much detail planning up-front as possible," Moranville says. "Don't panic. Even when there are challenges you face – that's just when you have to get creative." One snag Moranville's been dealing with is heightened security around the blast site due to Zynga desiring additional guards. "Apparently, some players of the video games can't differentiate between reality and game, and have been calling in bomb threats," Moranville says. Other things he's been juggling? At least 16 corporate guests, who had been invited to see the explosion firsthand, and about a dozen members of the local press, including full news crews. He hired a PR company, Swift, which is based in Los Angeles, to coordinate with local media.
11. Flip the switch.
Despite the urge to take center stage after all the hard work you've put into a campaign, don't do it. Instead, get someone even cooler. Like a celebrity. Or a politician, if your image is a bit more civic. "I've been doing this 26 years – and when you get to do something like this, it really doesn't get to happen every day," Moranville says. "So don't treat it like everyday business." Working with an L.A. celebrity rep, Moranville arranged to have rapper Snoop Dogg set off the explosion. "Snoop is kind of a gangster in his own right," he says. "He relates a lot to the image as a whole." When is it actually worthwhile to hire an A-list name to headline? Moranville says, when it fits your demographic perfectly, and when you need a little extra credibility boost. "It just gives us a lot more credibility with the press," he says. "This makes it look like 'these people did it right;' they had someone cool push the button."
12. Clean up your mess.
Once the blast has detonated, the PR job is hardly over. Distribution of video, photos, and news of the event takes place largely after a publicity stunt. The post mortem of a campaign's marketing impact can be even more intensive and take longer than creating the stunt event itself. Online impressions – on a promotional site, through social media such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as sales (or, in the case of Mafia Wars, new and returning user activations) - make or break a campaign these days. Good news for Davis Elen: the company says it's already above its goals for online impressions in the Vegas Mafia Wars campaign.
And what about the real life detritus? Zynga and Davis Elen hired a full crew for physical clean-up of the event. What happens to the blown-up truck? "It's rigged back on the flatbed and travels back to the WESTefx office, when they disassemble all the steel and scrap parts."
