Sacha Baron Cohen made a splash at this week’s Oscars by making fun of the late Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan dictator recently seen as an archetype Third World totalitarian despot. Female bodyguards and questionably-deserved medals in tow, Cohen was there to promote his most recent film, The Dictator, and had publicly announced that he’d be dressed as his character beforehand.
Cameras were already on him so he got lots of coverage when he accidentally spilled fake ashes onto TV and radio personality Ryan Seacres. In this episode of Future of Engagement, Murray Newlands looks at people’s response to the stunt, and at the greater question of whether stunts like this are effective:
Highlights:
- Cohen notified the media beforehand, so they were already expecting a stunt.
- His stunt involved painting a reporter in ash, ensuring it would be covered, in addition to coverage of his presence there…
- …But he got almost as many negative as positive responses on social media.
Graph by Alerti Social Media Monitoring and Management:
Legend for Alerti graph:
- Video = Youtube & Dailymotion + all the major sites like cnn, hulu, cnbc, abc via videosurf (videosurf.com / which is a video search engine which tracks all the major sites)
- Images : Flickr (they’ll be adding some more but only flickr for now)
- Facebook and Twitter are retrieved in the Facebook & Twitter categories together with Facebook & Twitter posts
Steve
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I tend to think Cohen is not at all funny anymore. His over the top style of humor is funny at first but becomes boring really soon. I couldn’t watch the third movie he made more than a half-hour. He needs to do something more authentic to be funny for me.
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Sacha Baron Cohen is a genius, people just need to learn that what he does is meant to be funny and to take it with a pinch of salt
Also, since you said you only think it’s a stunt, could you please explain how it could not be a stunt?
Also, interesting name. Is it German?
Sacha Baron Cohen is an amazing epatage characters! His did is full of irony and that is why I like him so much.
Its not the first time he does something like that. I remember when he was promoting Bruno during some awards ceremony he descended from above and placed his crotch in Eminem’s face, who, by the way, didn’t appreciate that at all. The one he did at the Oscars wasn’t as bad as the one I have just mentioned and it generated a major buzz in all media, which was the idea. I don’t care if some of the comments in social media were negative because you know what they say “Any publicity is good publicity” so all in all I thought it was a success.
P.S
I love Sacha Baron Cohen!
Nothing like a good ole publicity stunt. If he had done that for just sh–ts and giggles, I think I might have laughed more, but to know it was all prepared and alerted before hand seems a bit fake. I like Sasha B Cohen because he pushes the limits and he is really funny, but when you have to try hard to be funny, I start to become bored. I would rather see it in a movie than at the Oscars. He will always be “Ali G” to me.
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I thought it was funny – but then again I’ve loved Sacha Baron every since he started doing Ali G on British TV. It’s easy for high profile actors and comedians like him to drum up publicity, plus I’m sure he has the marketing might of Paramount Pictures backing his every move.
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Haha, I agree this is probably a publicity stunt, no doubt it will work due to his global popularity!
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LOL, it was DEFINITELY a publicity stunt!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ay6OC-Epxk
Murray Newlands would love you to read ..Learn about Monetizing Forums at ForumCon – Future of Forums
I think it’s only a publicity stunt.cohen is doing really well to promote his latest movie “the dictator.yah according to me,this type of stunt is very effective to promote a movie.
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