Believe It or Not, Ripley’s Latest Launch a Hit
One of Ripley’s branding slogans this year is “of course it’s OK to stare,” which seems a perfect match for some of the antics contained in the book, and subsequently performed in TV and radio studios throughout the country. The publicity campaign kicked off Aug. 20 with an appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman”—highlighted by a “car hurdler” named Jeff Clay leaping over three cars parked on a Manhattan street. It’s stunts like these that enable O’Brien and his colleagues to book a dozen or so TV shows and nearly 100 radio interviews per campaign. “Our venerable company’s brand is a huge asset in all of our marketing, especially the books,” O’Brien says. And the book’s subjects are so compelling that “five-minute planned interviews [frequently] turn into 20 minutes because people are so fascinated by what we do and, of course, by Ripley himself, who was a true eccentric.”
Matt Steinmetz is the publisher and brand director of Publishing Executive.