Stunt Watch: GTA VI pills spark rumours, Sure’s sniffable billboard and Walker’s shows its true colours
Stunt Watch during April Fool’s Day is a treacherous time.
This week, I've made a conscious effort not to include any foolish shenanigans, which, in my opinion, the quicker we stop doing, the better. You could do your April Fool’s stunt at any time of the year if you’re brave enough and want that all-important buzz and talkability.
Raving rumours with GTA VI teased at Ultra Miami
The release of GTA VI is a conversation on all gamers' lips and has been for over 10 years since GTA V became the best-selling and highest-grossing video game of all time. But new rumours are circulating over the release date when a batch of pills etched with VI and the date 01.10.25 were found circulating during Miami Music Week. Is this the boldest guerrilla marketing stunt from developer Rockstar or simply a dealer trying to cash in on pre-release hype?
A guy on Reddit found the pills inside a "mini-sandwich bag" outside "a busy nightclub in Downtown Miami", which feels like a setup. Either way, getting an idea this bold is the stuff of dreams. Proper guerilla marketing and perfect for the GTA audience. Let’s see if it all comes true.
Wake up and smell the bunda
There’s a weird increase of deodorant for your private bits flooding the market, and all the research shows that people are apparently spraying deodorant on their pits and bits.
The campaigns allow for a bit of bold thinking, so Sure released the first sniffable billboard, encouraging people to stop and sniff the "bunda" and "meatballs". I would love to be in the room when a team sells in the word bunda to a client — and Sure has generated some funny pictures of people sniffing the private parts of a billboard, which, coincidentally, smells nothing like you’d expect.
Most PR’s dread the call that asks to PR a billboard, but
something like this shows billboards don’t have to be boring. By making
them fun, we can inject an element of PR into them. I almost wish it was
brave enough to have a billboard of real people for an added level of
controversy.
Image credit: Pinpep/Sure
The one true colour
Now, I'm pretty sure this was an April Fool’s story, but deep down, I hope it wasn’t because it’s actually a great campaign. If it was wasted on an April Fool’s joke, then shame on them.
There has been a longstanding conspiracy theory that one day Walkers swapped the colours on their salt and vinegar and cheese and onion packaging, many claiming that back in the day green represented cheese and onion, while blue was salt and vinegar. Contrary to popular belief, Walkers have always used green for salt and vinegar and blue for cheese and onion.
Walkers told consumers that it corrected the colours back with some fun social assets and an out-of-home (OOH) campaign. It planted some guerilla packets in stores and let the digital world do what it does best, debate. It sparked the ‘utter work nonsense’ conversation, which shows the power of a simple activation with a great insight done right. I am also sorry to say that it was just another April Fool’s campaign.
Image credit: Walkers
(This was an April Fools campaign created by global creative agency of record VCCP, PR agency Good Relations and global content studio Girl&Bear, both part of VCCP.)
Written by Lee Sanders, associate director at Frank. First published on PRmoment.com.
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