• by Aaron Baar , July 30, 2010

Everyone loves a world record, and it can be marketing gold.

This year alone, Samsung has set a record for composing the world's fastest text message on a mobile touchscreen, and it attempted to set a record for the largest game of dodgeball. Key Bank and the Cleveland Cavaliers in March set a record for the most people wearing Snuggies in one place (22,500). And in February, Whole Foods attempted to set a record for cracking the most wheels of Parmigiano-Regiano cheese at one time.

To make it easier for brands to use world records as a marketing tool, Guinness World Records is launching Guinness World Records Live, a service line and live-events business unit designed to work with American brands to create record-breaking events.

"Half [of the unit's work] will be around practicing and preparing for the record, and the other half is about the show," Claire Burgess, representative for Guinness World Records, tells Marketing Daily. "This is the start of it, the opportunities are almost endless."

Modeled after similar units in Dubai, Barcelona, Turkey and the U.K., the U.S. unit will officially launch over the weekend during the X Games Sixteen events in Los Angeles. At the games, skateboarder Bob Burnquist and BMX rider Jamie Bestwick will perform stunts to set a baseline record and then encourage fans to break it. If the fans do so, they'll get their name in the record book, Burgess says.

At events run through the international units, more than 250 new world records have been set and the resulting press coverage has been equivalent to $50 million in media spending, according to the company. The U.S. operation will run out of the Guinness World Records' New York office.