In London today I did a double take… when I thought I saw a Smart car covered in grass.

It was a bit too speedy past St Pancras for me to see the name of the business, but a quick Google search found this photo and the company behind it.

Here’s the YouTube video of the Grass Bugs:

Stunning! There are lots of business that would talk about doing something like this, but very few would have the balls to actually do it. Easigrass deserves to do well.

It’s almost always about the story.

Good contacts can open doors and set up opportunities. But a great story gives you the biggest shot you’ll get at major PR coverage.

I caught the end of our regional BBC TV news tonight, where they did a live outside broadcast from an Indian restaurant that had introduced a curry so hot, no-one could eat a whole plate of it. And they had to fill in a disclaimer form before they did.

A classic publicity stunt. Getting plenty of valuable air time on a BBC TV show.

Fantastic.

OK, so it must be a slow news day. But you don’t get coverage like that “because you know a journalist”. You get coverage like that because you had a great story at the right time (exactly the timem the BBC had a slot to fill).

Then along came Google which invented its own box (the Google Search Appliance) for businesses to use in their buildings, to search their intranets, internal company documents, that sort of thing.

Google couldn’t make their box a different shape, because it had to fit in racks with all the other boxes. So it made it bright yellow. And whacked a massive logo on the side.

Then it ran a competition to see how “findable” the box is in the server room. That helped to promote the concept, because the box is there to help businesses find things more easily.

I know Google has a million clever people working for it, but that’s really smart.

Why not offer a job looking after the island - £70,000 for just 12 hours work a MONTH, mostly on the beach watching wildlife.

The only catch is you need to blog about your experience and do media interviews.

This job on Hamilton Island is a great publicity stunt, and even though it’s only a six month position I am sorely tempted to apply!

Pizza Hut is changing its name to Pasta Hut.

Er, right.

This may just be a PR stunt as they put a load more pasta on the menu. But renaming a business is something you don’t do lightly.

Went to Pizza Hut last night and it was full of people stuffing pizza in their gobs. Not pasta. People told McDonalds they wanted more than just burgers, but you don’t see builders in there munching on a Caesar salad, do you?

Rename it Pasta Hut and I might eventually forget it still sells pizza, and get a Dominoes Pizza instead.

You can vote on the new Pasta Hut website whether or not you like the new name. As I write this, 79 per cent say no.

Whoops.

UPDATE: Read this Telegraph story and it says the company is changing the name on 30 branches… temporarily. Phew. They haven’t gone mad then.

This is because of the Great British Summer Getaway. Fewer people here means fewer stories. And it’s a big opportunity for your business to get free publicity. But you need to start planning now.

Surveys and trends are a safe bet as are publicity stunts. Think unusual and don’t forget the visual aspect – providing a great photo or photo opportunity will help increase the amount of coverage you get.

Wish I had a tough mobile like the one just launched by Peter Jones (the very tall one from Dragon’s Den). To show how tough his JCB phone is, he put it through a series of public tests including being thrown in a cement mixer.

I’ll be using this example in a talk I’m contributing to at The Business Club Northants on Monday. My theme will be how you need to use actions to back up messages. Don’t just say your phone is the toughest ever – drive a truck over it.

What do you do when the boss deserves a prank and you’ve got a few hours to kill? How about use up the office’s stock of Post-It notes?

If you do do this at your office, take a photo and send it to the local paper. You never know…

Pushing a vehicle around to raise money for charity is good.

Pushing the milk float from Father Ted 800 miles, with a bookmaker sponsoring you and offering odds on the vehicle becoming Ireland’s Eurovision entry, is excellent!