• Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, July 28, 2009 10:32 AM

When valedictorian Kenya Mejia professed her still unrequited and previously undisclosed love for classmate Jake Minor at the close of her address at the Alexander Hamilton High School graduation in Los Angeles this spring, she was speaking from the pocketbook, not the heart.

Spouting "I love you, Jake Minor!" was a set-up by marketing executives and consultants for Twentieth Century Fox who wanted to create viral buzz for the July 10 opening of the romantic comedy "I Love You, Beth Cooper," Ethan Smith and Sabrina Shankman report. Mejia got $1,800 for the stunt but the 67-second YouTube clip that captured the moment had generated a mere 2,000 views when the reporters checked, and the movie itself has been a bit of a flop.

Still, write Smith and Shankman, staging events that look spontaneous but aren't is an increasingly popular Hollywood marketing tactic. They provide details, such as a stunt at the MTV Awards where Sacha Baron Cohen, in Brüno mode, got suggestively entangled with Eminem in what wasn't a technical malfunction after all.

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