Cheap public stunt: Swamp people's fake gator

Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of yet another reality tv-show. From the Real Housewifes from almost anywhere now, to Jersey Shore, to Alaskan State Troopers, to Deadliest Catch, the list goes on and on and on. We have seen men driving 18-ton trucks over frozen ice (Ice Road Truckers), followed a bunch of men on their quest for gold (Gold Rush Alaska), and even Sarah Palin jumped the bandwagon with her very, very boring own reality tv-show (Sarah Palin's Alaska). Reality tv-show overkill if you ask me, but that is another discussion.

In this endless sea of sameness, how do you get people excited about yet another reality tv-show? The people behind History Channel's new show Swamp People must have thought it might be a good idea to put up a fake manhole with a fake gator, all sectioned off on a Manhattan sidewalk with branded, fake barricades.

I get the idea. I get the thinking behind it, but the execution is just very disappointing. It looks very cheap, like someone walked into a props or toy store, and put this together for a child's birthday party. The way they pulled this off may work in a mall in suburban America, but in the epicenter of communication overkill, this one comes across as plain, cheap and lame. I stood there for a few minutes, and watched people's reactions, and trust me: people walked past this thing without even raising an eye brow.

It's pretty sad when you think that the effect is completely lost, especially since it takes some effort and money to even put this small stunt together: you need to get a permission for the city to fence off a section of the sidewalk, you need a guy from the production crew to be there all the time (to make sure no pedestrian gets a heart attack? The guy was sitting in the car parked right next to it), and all that for pretty much nothing.

If you come into Manhattan, and you want to pull off a public stunt like this, my recommendation: go all out, and make this HUGE. Set up a real pool at Union Square for a day, with a real gator, and make it an event. Sure, it will cost more, but that is what gets the New York press excited, and earns you tons of free editorial coverage. You might even make the morning, and the evening news. New Yorkers love this kind of stuff.