|
The
Mother of Stunt Marketers, by Elizabeth Esfahani
- 1st July 2005
(Credit:
CNNMoney)
A grilled-cheese Madonna, tattooed
boxers, and Super Bowl streakers have made a name
for GoldenPalace.
(Business
2.0) – You've probably heard how Diana Duyser
scored $28,000 on the Internet. In 1994, after
sitting down to eat a grilled cheese sandwich,
Duyser made a shocking discovery: A scorch mark
on her bread resembled the Virgin Mary. Duyser
kept the divine meal in a plastic case on a bedside
table for 10 years before putting it up for auction
last November on eBay.
More
interesting, however, is that the winning bid
was submitted by an Antigua-based online gambling
site called GoldenPalace.com. Where most people
saw American cheese and toast, GoldenPalace CEO
Richard Rowe—a 66-year-old Englishman who
was formerly a partner in a trust management firm—recognized
good buzz for the buck. After he purchased the
sacred sandwich, publications ranging from the
Los Angeles Times to the South China Morning Post
ran stories that included GoldenPalace's name.
(The fact that you've read this far proves that
the move is still paying off.) Good Morning America,
along with more than 200 TV and radio programs
worldwide, also mentioned the company. "People
are so inundated by advertising that it's rather
like wallpaper," Rowe says. "We aim
to amuse, because if people laugh, they'll remember."
BODACIOUS
BRAND-BUILDING
Performing
crazy acts just to generate publicity—and
ultimately sales—is one of the oldest tricks
in the marketer's handbook. (See "The Publicity
Stunts Hall of Fame," right.) But GoldenPalace
is a modern master of the art. In the past nine
months, the online casino scooped up a walking
cane that was supposedly haunted ($65,000), the
silicone implant of a former stripper ($16,766),
and a collection of Michael Jackson puppets ($15,099).
In mid-April, Rowe went on his biggest bender
yet—first paying $650,000 to officially
name a new monkey species after GoldenPalace (Callicebus
aureipalatii) and then spending $5,000 to own
what was alleged to be Britney Spears's positive
pregnancy test. And, in Rowe's greatest coup to
date, GoldenPalace bought a car it's calling "the
Pope Mobile"—a Volkswagen Golf formerly
owned by Pope Benedict XVI—for $244,591
in May. eBay says that auction got 8.4 million
hits, its most ever in Europe.
Bidding
for bizarre items may be a crass marketing strategy,
but it's effective in an industry where advertising
is controversial. The Justice Department considers
online gambling illegal and has been pressuring
media outlets to shun related ads. (The department
issued a subpoena to Esquire regarding an online
poker ad in the magazine's April issue.) With
a marketing budget of about $20 million a year,
GoldenPalace still runs plenty of traditional
and online ads, but the company says PR stunts
are a cheap way to build name recognition. Jerry
Wind, a Wharton marketing professor, thinks press
mentions due to GoldenPalace's $1 million in online
purchases are easily worth more than $30 million
in ads. "It's very smart in an environment
where the 30-second commercial is increasingly
less effective," Wind says. Rowe claims that
traffic to GoldenPalace's site jumps by as much
as 25 percent in the days following the most publicized
acts.
After
founding GoldenPalace in 1997, Rowe hired a three-person
Canadian firm called Cyber World Group—which
today has more than 200 employees, thanks to its
success with GoldenPalace—to popularize
the site. In 2001, Cyber World head of marketing
Drew Black paid middleweight boxer Bernard Hopkins
to stamp the GoldenPalace moniker on his back
for a Madison Square Garden bout. The move angered
the fight's TV broadcasters, spurred lawsuits—and
was covered by media outlets such as USA Today
and The Howard Stern Show.
SKIN IN THE GAME
SINCE
2003, BLACK HAS UPPED THE ANTE, hiring people
to streak at more than 1,000 sporting events,
from Wimbledon to Pamplona's running of the bulls,
with the website's name emblazoned on their bodies.
Rather than shell out millions of dollars for
a TV spot during the 2004 Super Bowl, GoldenPalace
stuck to its bare-bones tactics: A man branded
with the phrase "Super Bowel" and the
GoldenPalace URL streaked through Houston's Reliant
Park during halftime. According to Comscore Media
Metrix, visits to GoldenPalace's website jumped
immediately by 380 percent, which is especially
impressive considering that the stunt wasn't televised
and followed Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.
GoldenPalace
is one of the top three gambling sites in the
world, according to analysts, with 2.4 million
visitors per month in the United States alone.
Revenue—an estimated $80 million—is
growing at 5 percent per month, Rowe says. Of
course, eccentric eBay items may eventually lose
their luster. Then GoldenPalace will once again
have to trump itself. "It's always hard to
top the last one," Rowe admits, "but
somehow we come up with something." As for
his growing collection of odd objects, he plans
to send them on a North American tour this summer,
with proceeds going to charity.
Profiles
GoldenPalace.com
Publicity
Publicity
Stunt
|
