Here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers—can you see how incredible this is going to be?—hang gliding, come on!* 

It's easy for promotional stunts to go horribly wrong. They're called stunts for a reason, after all, even though the industry has tried to rebrand them with the sexier term guerilla marketing.

Best intentions aside, it doesn't help that most stunts happen in real time, in front of their intended target—that most unpredictable of creatures, the general public—and implicitly involve the media, which, often for the worse, broadcasts the results live.

As marketers, we've heard the cautionary tales and hopefully learned the lessons—stuff like, don't supply cheap intoxicants to a stadium full of riled sports fans... you know... just to keep the clothing-optional riots to a minimum.

Which is important, because with marketing budgets tightening, companies are now more likely to green light promotional stunts. On the one hand, such guerilla tactics are relatively inexpensive and could garner traffic-driving buzz. On the other, potential embarrassment and/or litigation could seriously erode a brand's equity, challenging the adage that there's no such thing as bad publicity—especially when it lives on via the internet.

Given the risks, it's a miracle anyone attempts such stunts at all these days. Which makes us applaud all the louder when things go dramatically right with a promotion. Here we salute those bold, brave marketers who chose to work without a net this year—and wowed us. In a good way.  

Starbucks salutes patriotism with free cuppa Pike Place Roast
No matter how they cast their ballots, all coffee drinkers were winners this November 4 thanks to Starbucks and the American propensity to stand in long lines for stuff involving free-ness.

Riding their own comeback trail alongside America, Starbucks offered anyone who said they voted a free cup of coffee on Election Day. The company ran a single TV spot (reportedly its first in a year) on "Saturday Night Live," and major media outlets picked up the story, often reposting the commercial on their websites. Word-of-mouth took over from there.

High estimates put the entire cost of the giveaway at a reported $1 million, according to "Ad Age," which isn't much for a Venti amount of publicity. The stunt reportedly upped the company's buzz rating, according to Brand Index, giving it a boost from 25% on Oct. 31 to 51% on November 5.

"There has been huge interest in this election and likely a lot of positive word-of-mouth [for the promotion]," Ted Marzilli of Brand Index told "Ad Age," "particularly given that the promotion ran on Election Day (a work day), when many people could spread the word to their colleagues."

Nine Inch Nails feeds fanaticism with high-tech treasure hunt
An innovator in guerilla marketing as well as music, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor grabbed headlines in 2007 when he promoted his apocalyptic "Year Zero" album with an elaborate alternate-reality treasure hunt that spilled from the Web into the streets and back again.

Dutiful fans who followed clues seeded everywhere from fictional websites to thumb drives dropped in restrooms at the band's concerts were ultimately "kidnapped and interrogated" and treated to a ferocious live performance by the band.

This year, free of a recording contract for the first time in his career, Reznor sprinted away with the possibilities the opportunity presented. Following Radiohead's lead, he released two new albums as free digital downloads while giving fans the option to purchase elaborately packaged versions of the discs—which they did in droves. First-week sales of the all-instrumental disc alone reportedly generated more than $1.6 million, according to "The New York Times."

Reznor took the opportunity to experiment once again as the band prepared to launch its summer tour. He hid tickets to a dress rehearsal beneath a rock in Burbank and indicated their location with a Google Earth link designated with a question mark on the band's website. Fans quickly descended upon the location.

"We couldn't leave that alone," Reznor told "Rolling Stone." "We hid another 30 in places from Watts Towers to behind a mirror in a strip-club restroom to a Home Depot." He also reportedly considered burying tickets in the yard of onetime rival Axl Rose, "just to see how many people got arrested on his front lawn."  

AMC brings "Mad Men" era to life
With the fate of super adman Donald Draper in their hands, AMC's marketing team must have felt some pressure when it came time to dream up promotions for the second season of "Mad Men," their then-cultish series. What would Draper do? they must have asked themselves—beyond the usual smoking, drinking, brooding, and womanizing, that is.

"This is an event for us, and we've elevated our game," AMC's Linda Schupack told "BrandWeek" at the time. "We're looking for a bigger audience, and we're treating this like a movie opening."

Spending a reported $25 million to launch season two, AMC supplemented creative use of traditional media (including a show-themed re-creation of a '60s-vintage edition of "Ad Age") with outdoor ads and promotional stunts focused around Grand Central Station.

Throughout the terminal, extras in '60s-period costumes handed out business cards from Sterling Cooper, the fictional Madison Avenue ad agency depicted on the show. If you jumped in a subway car traveling between Grand Central and Times Square, you were greeted by a life-size image of Draper looking suitably enigmatic. The interior of the cars was decorated to evoke Grand Central's marble interior, including cardboard chandelier ceiling treatments. Signage, meanwhile, featured classic Draper quotes like, "What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons."

Somewhere Draper must be smiling—the promotion played a part in boosting the shows total viewership 63%, according to "The Hollywood Reporter." Or maybe he's just drinking, smoking, brooding and womanizing.

CNN turns headlines into chestlines
The news. We have more of it than we know what to do with. Until now, that is. Sure, we still have more headlines than we can usefully process, but thanks to CNN.com, we at least know how to apply them—as slogans on a t-shirt, of course.

At CNN.com, you can purchase your favorite headlines on a tee and proudly display your emotional or ideological connection with news such as "Youthful Obamas inspire Camelot talk" or "Weird fish leave sea, spawn on beach."

The Web application is the latest brainchild of the provocateurs at the Barbarian Group, the boutique behind such viral successes as Burger King's Subservient Chicken site and the Milwaukee's Best beer cannon videos. What's the agency's key piece of advice for companies trying to fight through the clutter on the Web?

As founder Benjamin Palmer told "Esquire": "You're a brand, make yourself useful."  


*Intro quote from Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket," 1996 

Robert Cherry is Vice President, Creative Director at Seed Strategy. As a freelance journalist he has contributed to "Rolling Stone," "Entertainment Weekly" and Cleveland's "The Plain Dealer."
Share your favorite promotional stunt with him at rcherry@seedstrategy.com.