stunts

For some reason, possibly because they have the same ad agency as Burger King, Microsoft has convinced the fast food chain to offer a 7-layer Whopper in celebration of Windows 7. What is a 7-layer Whopper? It's just a Whopper with 7 patties.  More Â»

Tony Stewart is a NASCAR person. He likes Whoppers, so he endorses them. The concept of a celebrity liking the product they endorse is so alien to us that BK's ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky is apparently planning to hook Mr. Stewart up to a lie detector on a live webcast and ask him if he really likes Whoppers.  More Â»

John Hargrave of comedy site Zug.com tracked down the personal info of Verizon's CEO, then showed up with a bullhorn to illustrate what a lack of privacy feels like. "Ivan Seidenberg! I'm here on behalf of Verizon customers. PLEASE DO A BETTER JOB PROTECTING YOUR CUSTOMERS' CELL PHONE RECORDS! Everyone has the right to privacy, including you Ivan! When we don't have privacy, then freaks with bullhorns start showing up on our front lawn."  More Â»

The logo at Mark Muller's dealership is... an old west caricature pointing two pistols at those who pass by. He said it's a nod to what he calls "big city" ways. "We really are different than the big city dealers."  More Â»

After accidentally scribbling nonsense on a verification screen and seeing that it didn't trigger any alerts, Kingpin at DrunkRepublic decided to start goofing around with his signature when using his credit card. It led to some fun times for a while. Then it backfired. (Warning: the image after the jump is cartoonishly NSWF in a Comcast-at-the-Superbowl sort of way.)  More Â»

The man who wrote the long, funny complaint letter to Richard Branson about the level of suck on his recent Virgin Atlantic flight has been asked to "come to the airline’s catering house next month, to help select the food on future Virgin flights." Yeah, we know that it's a publicity stunt, but an entertaining one. We hope the customer agrees, and hates the new food just as much. In fact, we wish he'd replace Toby Young on Top Chef; the dead hamster line would be a pretty good put-down on that show.  More Â»

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Reuters has a wrap-up of some of the wackier gas-related stories of recent weeks, including the Nevada Brothel's free-gas-card offer, a church that's holding a weekly $50 gas card drawing during mass, and an Orlando father who pledged to name his baby after local radio hosts in order to collect a $100 gas card. There's also some gas thieves in Mesquite, Texas, who are siphoning from church vehicles, but that's not so much a "wacky stunt" as a type of criminal "preemptive charity." (""All he had to do was come and ask us and we would have bought him a tank of gas," said the pastor of one church.)  More Â»

Chrysler has extracted the DNA of our executive email carpet bomb and used it to create a weird new outreach program: starting next week, 300 Chryslers execs will each call a different recent purchaser of a Chrysler, Dodge, or Jeep vehicle and ask if there are any problems. According to Cars.com's blog Kicking Tires, they'll keep doing this "until Chrysler chairman and chief executive officer Bob Nardelli is satisfied that if his customers have troubles, their problems will be fixed. Nardelli, by the way, is going to make the calls, too." That last sentence—well, really the whole idea—becomes funnier when you know where Nardelli once worked.  More Â»

Yeah, it's a PR stunt—but a funny one, especially because the only two people excluded by Dr Pepper's pledge are "estranged GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead." Someone in the Dr Pepper PR department really likes Axl Rose. Rose says neither he nor his label are in cahoots with Dr Pepper, and that he'd share his drink with Buckethead because "some of Buckethead's performances are on our album."   More Â»

Remember that one guy who decided to visit all the Starbucks in NYC in 24 hours? Yeah, we'd forgotten about it, too. He's convinced IKEA to let him live in their Paramus, NJ store for a week while his apartment gets fumigated.  More Â»

Some cynical people, (not us, mind you) are starting to suspect that the news stories popping up all over the U.S. about Starbucks "cheer chains" might be planted by Starbuck's PR team.  More Â»

Walmart has pulled copies of the Superbad DVD that contained a promotional "McLovin" Hawaii license after Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann objected to the item. The "license" appears to be made with a lenticular lens, and when viewed at different angles shows either Fogell or his ever-sexy alter-ego, "McLovin."  More Â»

We know how much our readers hate expensive textbooks, so meet Andre Ditto, the 47 year-old vegan personal trainer who is going to run the NYC marathon carrying 30lbs of textbooks both to protest the high cost of college textbooks and as a promotion for ebook retailer CaféScribe.   More Â»

According to OK! magazine, Virgin America will be hosting "the first-ever supermodel in-flight pajama party this November," with the Victoria's Secret models. No, you're not invited. Yes, someone else is. Yes, that person probably has a camera.  More Â»