There is a lot to learn from the bad marketing examples as well as the best in class ones. This latest piece of bad comes from a parasailing business in Russia. The owners tied a donkey to a parasail and launched him up into the sky. Chaos ensued. Children cried, mothers’ blasphemed, animal activists erupted, lawyers were ready to lynch.

Challenger Brands have a knack for pulling off bold stunts to attract attention and alert us to the fact that something is different about them. Think Swatch dangling a gigantic watch of the Deutchbank building in the 90s, or Mini who parked their cars atop SUV’s with the slogan “the SUV backlash starts now” or the conference in the Maldives to highlight the threat of climate change that took place underwater. I’m a big fan of these bold, daring stunts and think there should be more of them. But, the best ones make a point. I get it…Swatch, you’re pretty fun and you’re not so expensive as normal Swiss watches; Mini – you’re the diametric opposite of an SUV; Maldives – you really are going under. And perhaps that’s why this donkey stunt didn’t work so well. Aside from being cruel, there was no real point to it. So, before we pull of big ‘look at me’ stunts, let’s make sure we have some substance underneath it all.