It should be fairly obvious by now that Richard Heene concocted the Balloon Boy story to get on television. He successfully held the nation’s attention for hours as his balloon, supposedly with his 6-year-old aboard, covered a couple of counties and tons of airtime.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out what was going on when I saw that he and his family were on Wife Swap. If you are so desperate to get on television that you would put your family on Wife Swap, you will do anything including convincing your 6-year-old to hide in the attic till the “show” is over.
Is there a brand in the world that wouldn’t want hours of free airtime for their product and countless hours of water-cooler talk afterward? The value of the airtime is in the millions and will continue to grow. That’s not even counting the airtime that Richard Heene has already racked up over the years. That kind of airtime with a positive message can fuse brands to the public consciousness.
Simple YouTube searches revealed that Richard was working on all crazy cylinders 24/7 with Wife Swap, Web videos, CNN iReport segments, a Web page, and I’m sure a dozen more schemes that will be uncovered in the coming weeks. Here he is talking about life on Mars.
There are brands that don’t even come close to hitting as many different touch points as Richard did. And as far as I can tell, he has very little money. Out of sheer desperation and energy, he has been able to take the world by storm. Of course, he didn’t really have a message; he just wanted to be on TV.
Then there are people like Gary Vaynerchuk. He built a $60 million business by pushing his personal brand on the Web. Check him out and you will see the similarities. http://tv.winelibrary.com/
If Falcon had some media training, this would be a fantastic story that could be financially rewarding to the Heene Family. It’s obviously hard to media-train a 6-year-old, or a 47-year-old for that matter.
Most of the Twitterverse is very disappointed that Falcon didn’t really fly and survive. Maybe Red Bull or some other brand will take him higher than the attic. Richard will need some cash to pay helicopter bills and fines.
If we, as marketers, could take anything from the story at all, it would be to harness the energy of Richard Heene without the stupidity and don’t be afraid to take risks. Here is a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer as far as his brand was concerned.
