In 2005, manufacturing conglomerate 3M positioned $3 million inside bulletproof glass at a Vancouver, British Columbia, bus cease as a part of a advertising and marketing stunt, difficult passersby to interrupt the glass and take the cash.
Viral advertising and marketing emerged as a viable technique for firms to advertise merchandise within the mid-Nineties. Nevertheless, the buzzy campaigns usually have a brief shelf life — conversations round them do not final lengthy. It is uncommon for folks to recollect a particular advertising and marketing stunt a long time after it launches.
However an alleged scheme by manufacturing conglomerate 3M was a kind of unusual instances. In October 2024, a declare circulated online alleging that, in 2005, the corporate put $3 million inside bulletproof poster glass at a Vancouver, British Columbia, bus cease as a part of a advertising and marketing stunt to advertise their product, promising that if anybody might break the glass, they may hold the cash.
This declare has surfaced many occasions by way of the years, together with these Reddit threads from 2011, 2012, and 2022, on LinkedIn in 2016, on X in 2020, 2021, and 2023, in addition to Threads and Facebook in 2024.
Customers shared their concepts about learn how to crack the glass on numerous social media threads. One Reddit person wrote, “Tie it to my trailer hitch with a series on the base and it will both break from the sideways shift or it’s going to come out of the bottom. Both approach, I can get that open in my storage.”
One other asked, “What retains folks from sawing by way of the steel pipe, taking all the unit again to a store and attacking it with skilled instruments?”
(XGramatik on Reddit)
Even in 2005, message boards had been alive with customers commenting on how finest to realize the duty. “If that had been actual cash, then it wants only a man with a good truck to drag the entire case out at 4 a.m., after which work at it someplace else,” stated one member.
Snopes reached out to 3M and the advertising and marketing agency in query to verify the small print of the stunt and can replace this story if we hear again. Till then, we have rated this declare as analysis in progress.
In December 2005, AdLand reported the stunt was masterminded by the Vancouver advert company Rethink Communications. Based on CBC/Radio-Canada‘s 2024 report concerning the stunt on an episode of the present “Underneath the Affect,” Rethink merely put the show on the road and “simply left it there.” The story continued:
Subsequent, they aimed a video digicam on the bus shelter to see if folks would attempt to break the glass. Certain sufficient, folks lined as much as strive. They kicked it. They hit it. There have been just a few flying sidekicks and even some development employees with steel-toed boots. The glass by no means broke.
Nevertheless, in 2006, Gizmodo revealed that it was not $3 million behind the glass, however fairly $500 stacked on prime of pretend cash.
The outlet additionally reported that there was a stipulation of solely utilizing one’s ft to try to break the glass, and that there was a safety guard on website to implement the principles.
Additional, the stunt solely lasted one day, and the product on the middle of the stunt was not bulletproof glass, however 3M’s Scotchshield security window film.
3M’s web site describes the product as:
… an optically clear, glass shatter resistant and abrasion resistant 8-mil window movie that, when utilized as instructed to the glass floor of inside home windows or doorways, helps maintain damaged glass collectively and considerably reduces the ultra-violet mild that usually would enter by way of the glass. Helps forestall flying glass shards within the following functions: spontaneous glass breakage, break and Entry Incidents, seismic occasions, intentional and unintended explosions, and windstorms.
Based on a 2023 report by Canadian information outlet Daily Hive, 3M “obtained over $1 million in free publicity from all of the natural native and nationwide media protection it earned on the time, and the price of the stunt was simply $6,000, together with the price of putting in lights contained in the case for the nighttime illumination of the money.” As well as, the outlet reviews that the stunt resulted in a three-month backlog of orders for Scotchshield.
In 2017, a clip of Canadian discuss present “The Marilyn Denis Present” was posted to YouTube, showcasing an indication of Scotchshield.
The stunt has grow to be a well-regarded instance of guerrilla advertising and marketing inside the advertising and marketing and promoting communities. In 2020, the advertising and marketing publication Better Marketing stated, “3M’s stunt is an instance to us all {that a} well-executed plan that’s out of the odd can have long-lasting advantages for what you are promoting.”
Nevertheless, we might discover no point out of the stunt on 3M’s official web site or Rethink’s official website or social media, although Rethink seems to have since finished campaigns for manufacturers resembling Ikea, Kraft Heinz, and Penguin Random House.
We have investigated viral advertising and marketing claims previously, together with this one that includes a billboard confronting a cheating spouse in 2006, a hawk dropping a snake on a family barbecue in 2016, and the story behind the “Charlie Charlie challenge” in 2015.
