Many years ago, when Jon Bond and I first started our agency,
Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, we launched our agency with one
simple ad for Kenneth Cole that stated “Imelda Marcos bought 2700 pairs of
shoes. She could have at least had the courtesy to buy a pair of ours.” The
resulting press and word of mouth taught us an important lesson early on:
Create attention. Create a story that captures the public’s interest and it
could translate into millions of dollars of free press for your client or your
own brand. This simple formula helped put our client and agency on the
map to fame and fortune. And who can complain about that?
We actually invented a term called the multiplier effect because the resulting
press attention actually multiplied the client’s ad budget, making a few million
look ten times larger.