> Well at any rate I see nothing new about publicity stunts.

Yeah, these people's job is the effective dissemination of themselves as a brand, or archetype of what is 'sexy', 'in' or whatever else. Compnaies started catching on to this idea a while ago too. This means that the most successful firms with the brightest people are becoming the ones that produce the least but market themselves most effectively.(try the film "The Corporation")