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The Business Pranksters Strike Again

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Last week, I received an email that looked, to say the least, pretty suss. It purportedly came from Halliburton, the firm formerly headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney claiming to have invented the SurvivaBall, "an advanced new technology will keep corporate managers safe even when climate change makes life as we know it impossible". Yeah right. With links to a website and photos, you didn't need to be Einstein to see it was fake.

Turns out this was the work of the Yes Men, a group of environmental and corporate ethics activists who gate-crashed a trade conference. With their inflatable suits, they did their presentation purporting to be Halliburton executives. The story was picked up by the Washington Times.

Followers of the Yes Men will remember a similar stunt pulled on the World Trade Organisation four years ago.

While on the subject of pranks, you might want to check out the fake consultancy Huh ("We do stuff"). Check the links out too, they're hilarious.

I suspect we're going to see more and more of this sort of stuff. Why not when here is so much business BS around? And it's getting worse. You have to admit there are plenty of targets. Care to nominate any?

Leon Gettler
May 16, 2006 10:12 AM

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