When fans of the canceled TV show 'Jericho' began sending nuts to CBS, Nuts.com capitalized on the moment. They created a dedicated webpage to facilitate bulk shipments, turning a niche protest into a national story. They ultimately sent 40,000 lbs of peanuts, earning media coverage from The New York Times to CNN at virtually no cost.
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A repeatable framework for creating viral stunts is to take a familiar concept—like a toy store, meditation app, or musical—and create the "world's first" version specifically for your target audience. The inherent absurdity of a "meditation app for CISOs" or a "dating app for accountants" generates curiosity and makes the campaign highly shareable.
To stand out at a major conference, the 7-person Bug Crowd team skipped the expensive booth. Instead, they printed 500 t-shirts with a clever hacker slogan ("My other computer is your computer") and gave them away. This created the illusion of a massive presence and sparked conversations for a fraction of the cost.
Jeff Braverman long coveted the `nuts.com` domain. The final push came when TV host Rachel Ray mistakenly called his company `nuts.com` instead of `nutsonline.com` on her show. This public confusion validated his belief that the simpler name was far more memorable, prompting him to spend $700,000 on the acquisition.
Digital Spy's traffic exploded when its forums discussed a controversial event from the show *Big Brother* for days before mainstream media. When a national newspaper finally covered it, the forum was the top Google result, proving how niche communities can preempt and dominate news cycles.
Instead of a single national campaign, Pepsi armed its local bottlers with camcorders to run the "Pepsi Challenge" in their own communities. Using local TV spots with real people, they created an authentic, grassroots movement that a centralized giant like Coca-Cola was ill-equipped to counter.
A local roofing company creates "Mr. Beast"-style YouTube videos where they give away free roofs to people in need. This generates massive top-of-funnel awareness and goodwill, a tactic typically used by national creators, not local service businesses. It also makes the work more engaging for the owner and team.
To counter a competitor's expensive Super Bowl launch, the Old Spice team posted their ad on YouTube and Facebook the Friday before the game. The ad went so viral over the weekend that it was included in Monday's Super Bowl ad roundups, achieving massive reach for free.
The IVF company Nucleus ran a subway campaign with provocative slogans like 'Have your best baby' to deliberately anger a segment of the population. This 'rage bait' strategy manufactures virality in controversial industries, leveraging negative reactions to gain widespread attention that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.
The 'Jericho' protest campaign didn't convert protestors into long-term customers. However, the stunt's true, lasting value came from powerful SEO backlinks from media like The New York Times. By redirecting the campaign URL to their main nuts page afterward, they captured this authority, boosting their search ranking for years to come.
With no ad budget, FUBU offered to paint its logo on the security gates of local businesses—from bodegas to repair shops—in exchange for keeping them graffiti-free. Labeling them all as an "authorized FUBU dealer," regardless of what they sold, created a massive, free advertising network and the perception of a large retail presence.
