5. Goldenpalace.com at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
A man donning a purple tutu with the words "Goldenpalace.com" painted on his torso, jumped off of a high dive board into the olympic swimming pool. Greek officials were not pleased, slapping the man with 3 months in Greek prison. Ultimately, he was released and given a fine of a few hundred dollars.

4. Microsoft Zune at South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.
At the SXSW, a man was simply posting bright large Zune posters in different locations, but it would seem that the hatred of Zune spreads far and wide. He was detained and handcuffed by police as onlookers were heard yelling things such as, "We'll have none of your advertising for your DRM'd crippleware'd crappy MP3 player littering our town!"

3. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" movie poster campaign.
This campaign featured posters across the country that read, "You suck Sarah Marshall." However, the real Sarah Marshalls' of the country were none too pleased. In response, new posters went up that read, "You suck Judd Apatow," a hostile salute to the film's producer.

2. Nvidia manufactures hype with fake forum fanfare.
A few years ago, Nivdia was accused of making fake posts in forums to tout their new product. This is probably the most common guerilla-marketing tactic since it is so easy to do. Because Nvidia is such a big company with a ravenous fan base, their forum forgeries seem to be the most infamous. The Consumerist featured this story in early 2006.

1. Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the Boston bomb scare of 2007.
Approximately 20 glowing signs depicting a character from the cartoon series were mounted in strategic areas around Boston, including places around bridges and overpasses. The areas seemed a little too strategic for Boston officials who summoned the bomb squad to dismantle the innocuous signs. The stunt cost Turner Broadcasting Company $2 million which went to reimburse Boston PD and Homeland Security. Apparently, the city feared the dreaded "Lite Brite" bomb, so popular among terrorists.

5 Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Gone Wrong: Olympic Belly-Flops To the Boston Bomb Scare [WebUrbanist]
(Photo: WebUrbanist)

"Napster is willing to pay you money, and all you have to do is keep your site lookin' pretty. Napster...provides sites like yours with streaming flash-based links to their library. Super-easy!... You get 5% for downloads and $10 dollars for each subscription. Give us an email or call and say, "my site wants a sugar daddy", we'll hook you up."

Barf.

Brian was only one stop on Nadine's fun train, similar pitches went out to other blogs, including one by marketing professional, John Scalzi. He promptly dissected the letter and publicly spread its guts, including the President of Guerilla PR, Michael Leifer. Turns out Nadine made an unauthorized "cool kid" remix of the company's pitch letter designed for comedy blogs. After spotting her craftwork in the stockades, Leifer fired her.

Starting to see a trend among companies when blogs expose their bad behavior: Apologize, declare the employee rogue, fire their ass, and say it will never happen again.

Full copy of the offending email, after the jump...

—-—-—-—-— Forwarded Message: —-—-—-—-—
From: "Nadine Dunn"
To: [redacted}@kotaku.com
Subject: Napster Loves Ya!
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:18:05 +0000

Hello Brian

Napster is willing to pay you money, and all you have to do is keep your site lookin' pretty. Napster has taken their catalog of over 2 million songs and comedy routines and acquired the rights to provide sites like yours with streaming flash-based links to their library.

These cool links will add to your content and enable users to have a No-cost interactive audio experience.

Super-easy! Your users can cut and paste these audio links into their blogs, MySpace pages, etc. and you collect money. You get 5% for downloads and $10 dollars for each subscription. If you'd like to see an example of what it will look like on your site , checkout www.gumpop.com

Give us an email or call and say, "my site wants a sugar daddy", we'll hook you up.

Best,
Nadine

Nadine Dunn
guerilla PR, Inc.
212-[redacted]
nadine@guerillapr.com
www.guerillapr.com

In a disappointment to the hedonistic town s illiterate trannies, the press release reports only woman are allowed to run and stiletto's as well as a copy of the March fashion issue are a must to compete.

Furthermore, the run will have a guerrilla character. You know how big the Zapatistas are on pop fashion.

If you re over there loading up on absinthe for your company s annual ides of March celebration, go here to apply to race.

Just watch those ankles.