Radio Station Burns $5,000 Cash in Publicity Stunt

[Brad_H]

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/radio-station-burns--5-000-cash-in-publicity-stunt-182319410.html

I'm not sure how to feel about this, on the one hand it's the stations money and it's theirs to do what they wish with it, on the other; lol.

[warfreak2]

It's illegal to destroy money in most countries.

Sadly, it may buy more publicity than if they used it in any responsible way. We're talking about it now, for example. Really, the thread should end here if we want to discourage it from happening more.

[Brad_H]

True, but if you believe inflation comes from printing more money then is removed from the economy; they just deflated it a bit.

[SweetLife]

Sucks this happened in Canada! I can see the marketing point of view but I still don't think it was a very responsible thing to do ...

[Eric]

I think this is posted in the wrong category.  This is as Mustachian as it gets.  They just bought about $100K+ worth of publicity for $5K.  For a business, this was by far the best way they could've "spent" the money.

[AJ]

I have unsuccessfully tried to convince my Christian friends and family that they should be burning a certain portion of their tithe/offering rather than donating it, since much of the OT offerings were burned. There is some powerful psychology at play when you burn money over donating it to a cause you support.

True, but if you believe inflation comes from printing more money then is removed from the economy; they just deflated it a bit.

+1

[jambongris]

It's illegal to destroy money in most countries.

From what I understand it's only illegal to destroy coins in Canada, not banknotes. At least that's what the radio station claimed the Calgary Police told them.

[Carlsky]

Here is the quick background which I think is important for this story, it was a social experiment called Bank It or Burn It.

People tweeted to the station of their vote of whether to bank the $5k or burn it.  If the votes for Banking the money won, then the money would be given to one of the people who voted to bank it.  If the burn votes won, then you know what happens.  Burn It won with 54%

I think it was an interesting social experiment and I agree, they got a huge amount of publicity through this.

Finally, you could tell the DJ's were not happy burning the money.  From experience I know DJ's are payed poorly and it tortured them to burn it.

[GuitarStv]

You know . . . I am surprised that this generated so much outrage.  Every time that you see a luxury car on the road the person who bought it burned much more than 5 grand by driving it off the lot, yet there is no public protesting of luxury car owners to donate their money to charity and instead drive cheaper vehicles.

[warfreak2]

Luxury car buyers may immediately lose $5k, but it's not burned, someone else gains it. Depreciation isn't necessarily the destruction of value, that value could be either immediately transferred to the seller, or eventually transferred to the buyer. In the extreme case where you buy a car for $60k and then sell it the next day for $55k, that's the same as giving away $5k to the second buyer, so that they can pay $60k for the same car. Alternatively, it's the same as buying the car for the $55k that it's worth when you get it, but also transferring an additional $5k to the seller.

Buying $5k worth of food just to let it expire, that would be a destruction of value, and maybe it's clearer how it's an irresponsible thing to do.

[MgoSam]

I would think that there are better ways to get publicity while blowing $5000. That said I avoid talk radio for that reason, they do stupid ass things to get people interested in it and do stunts just for attention. They really just remind of Andy Dick.

[dude]

I'm sure their listeners who are unemployed or earning below-poverty wages were happy to hear this.  I know people "waste" money in a lot of ways, but thinking about how much food that burned up $5K could have put on some struggling family's table saddens me.