5 Publicity Stunts That Went Horribly Wrong

4. GM’s Oprah Giveaway

In September 2004, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) signed a deal with Oprah Winfrey in which it would give away 276 Pontiac G6 cars, whose popularity was sputtering, to hand-picked audience members. Oprah Winfrey praised the car in her massively popular show for about 30 minutes, telling the audience that the Pontiac G6 had “one of the most powerful” engines and a satellite radio. Ms. Winfrey then announced that all 276 audience members present in the studio that night would get one of the $28,500 cars for free. But things were not so easy (or free) for the audience, which was understandably shrieking with joy at that point. Behind the scenes, General Motors declared that all the winners would have to pay the federal and state income taxes on the original value of the car, from their own wallets. Those costs totaled about $6,000-$7,000 per car. The publicity stunt becomes even more inadequate because of the fact that Oprah Winfrey had asked the show’s organizers to invite people to sit in the audience who were in desperate need of a car. The winners were given a choice to either pay the taxes and take the car home or refuse the offer. While Pontiac did get a slight boost from the expensive promotion (which cost them about $7.7 million, despite not also covering the winners’ tax obligations), it wasn’t enough to save the brand, which was axed five years later, just ahead of GM’s bankruptcy.

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On the next page we’ll take a look at three more PR debacles from noteworthy companies.