The sordid history of ‘earned media’ advertising
Rob Long
When Hal Roach Studios released the classic comedy Safety Last! in 1923, it knew it needed a big publicity splash to launch the picture. So it hired a famous stunt climber, Harry F. Young, known in show business as the “Human Fly,” to climb up the side of the Martinique Hotel in Manhattan and cause a commotion.
If you’re an old movie buff, you might remember why. Safety Last! is one of Harold Lloyd’s classic silent movie comedies. The most well-known sequence of the movie, and one of the most famous shots in movie history, has the actor dangling from the spire of a downtown Los Angeles skyscraper, clinging for life to the minute hand of the tower’s clock. It’s a hilarious, scary-funny moment that still works 100 years later.
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What Lloyd and his studio were aiming for when they hired the Human Fly was something that people in show business have always prized: free publicity. A guy climbing up the side of a tall building, in a direct imitation of the movie’s signature moment, would get people talking, and it would generate more buzz than a million dollars of paid advertising. It’s called “earned media” — meaning, I guess, that the attention is earned rather than bought and paid for.
No one earned it more than the Human Fly, who lost his grip about 10 stories up and plunged to his death, creating exactly the kind of buzzy spectacle that movie studio marketing departments dream of. Even better than a successful climb was one that ended in a tragic splat! on the pavement, reinforcing the idea that Lloyd’s stunt in the movie was seriously risky. (Which it wasn’t. The camera was angled in such a way that viewers didn’t see the wide ledge just beneath the dangling star.)
I can only imagine the scene: A young studio executive bursts into the chief’s office, beaming and shouting for joy. “Great news, boss! The guy we hired to shimmy up the building did a triple gainer down to the sidewalk in front of the crowd and the newspaper boys and everyone!” The boss whoops merrily and passes out cigars, predicting that Safety Last! will be one of that year’s biggest pictures.
And then some killjoy says something dreary and negative like, Hey, fellas, a man died; have some respect. They all pause for a moment and mutter something along the lines of yes, yes, terrible tragedy, mysteries of life, God’s unfathomable plan, etc., etc. And everyone quickly gets back to counting the money.
That’s how it still goes. The combined net worth of the Kardashian family enterprise is estimated at nearly $2.8 billion, but it’s worth remembering that the USS Kardashian was launched with a bit of notorious earned media of its own. In 2007, under the murkiest of circumstances, a homemade sex tape was “leaked” to an internet pornographer, depicting Kim Kardashian (current net worth: $1.8 billion) and her then-boyfriend engaged in intimate adult activities. It has long been rumored that the entire stunt was orchestrated by Kim’s mother, Kris Kardashian (current net worth: $200 million), as a way to launch Kim and her siblings (current net worth of Khloe Kardashian: $100 million; current net worth of Kylie Jenner: $800 million). Whether or not that was the strategy, it all adds up to a pretty solid return for someone who is not, to my knowledge, a certified financial planner.
To put it another way, studio boss Kris Jenner knew that if she hired her daughter to climb up the side of her boyfriend, it would generate more buzz than a million dollars of paid advertising. And it was a lot easier than having any actual talent. But now I feel like that killjoy in the movie studio president’s office, reminding everyone that “earned media” only feels free.
People will tell you there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and if you’re a Kardashian or Harold Lloyd or pretty much anyone currently making noise in that other show business we call politics, that may be true. But I’m pretty sure that if you or I tried to get a little earned media of our own, we’d end up like the Human Fly. Famous for a few thrilling seconds, and then splat!
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Rob Long is a television writer and producer, including as a screenwriter and executive producer on Cheers, and he is the co-founder of Ricochet.com.