Where to draw the line with unwilling participants of PR stunts?

BBC News reports mysterious stone heads keep turning up in the "dead of night" around Yorkshire villages. On the back of each head reads a note: "twinkle twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?"

As one village correctly guesses, it's a PR stunt. At what stage does doing something exciting to generate interest become a nuisance to villages? Are these villages the target for this PR campaign? Or rather are they an easy route to scoring hits with mainstream media?

There is no 'opt-out' opportunity for these villages. If those that receive the heads don't talk about it does the village receive more heads, or less? If this PR campaigns turns out to be entirely irrelevant to these villages, how will residents react?

So far the story has only been picked up by BBC News and the Daily Mail - but I suspect more will follow.


Best not to get spotted dropping off stone heads on CCTV