Lee Nelson video is example of believable, but untrue, PR stunts

 In the theatre, they talk about the “willing suspension of disbelief”.

In other words, we sit in an audience watching people we know aren’t really those they purport to be pretending to do things that are unlikely ever to have happened. But we willingly let ourselves believe that what we’re watching is real.

The story – and its performers – are convincing enough that we’ll allow ourselves to be taken in purely for the entertainment value.

So it is from time-to-time with the stunt.

Watch this fella by way of prime example:

What on God’s earth, you may well ask, has this piece of theatre theory and Lee Nelson got to teach us about the world of PR?

It teaches us that, if your story is good enough then there are times that the media themselves will be willing to play along. Even if everyone knows well enough that the story being pitched has only a passing – though believable – relation to reality.

And that is the art this sort of stunt requires – and which Mr Nelson has demonstrated with a remarkably polished piece of film-making, which commits to film a piece of brand theatre presented as a true occurrence, with the moving image to “prove” it.

Take likewise, for example, the self-timing egg (courtesy of Mr Alan Twigg). Never a reality, always a trial, but just believable enough that the media wanted it to be real. To the degree that a host of said media gave this idea the airtime that it deserved.

Or I would refer you to the story of SPAR’s regional wine labels (disclaimer, one that I had a hand in). Only ever something that the brand was “considering” but well-crafted enough that the most serious of outlets were willing to “suspend their disbelief” long enough to cover the story.

There are scores of these “sounds just plausible enough to be true” stories around.

Too often they sink without trace – so implausible that they lack the ring of possible truth required, or just not a good enough tale to make the unspoken pact (if you tell me it’s true, I will believe it long enough to write it up) between PR and journalist worth observing.

But get that balance right and the “pilot” or “trial” story has the potential to fly – and sometimes those wings will carry it around the world.

James Gordon-MacIntosh is a managing partner at Hope&Glory PR. He’s now working on a book – Antics Roadshow: an incomplete compendium of stunts, stories and japes. He’s looking for submissions, so if you’ve got work that should be included head here.