Ofori Amponsah’s ‘death’ scam which was unraveled by Graphic Showbiz was a good marketing ploy, but a horrendous move. Publicity stunts by artistes aren’t anything new and we’ve heard and seen so many of them.

The likes of R. Kelly get entangled in under-aged sex acts, DMX gets himself involved in theft and 50 Cent engages himself in shooting incidents and all these stupid schemes are done prior to their album releases in a bid to boost album sales.

Such publicity stunts in Ghana are rare, but to stage your own death as a stunt is simply ludicrous. Interestingly, such stunts do work and they go a long way to augment record sales, but it doesn’t come that easy.

To pull off a successful stunt, one ought to plan very well, from start to finish. It doesn’t take a day or two and one newspaper to create such a stunt which will definitely have an impact on your loyal fans, the entire discerning listeners and your album sales.

Ofori Amponsah’s stunt lacked planning and he infect picked the wrong guys, the wrong writer and maybe, just maybe the wrong print to make such a gimmick, and that’s why he failed woefully.

He’s a good singer nevertheless, and his album will sell, but then, the stunt, if enacted perfectly could’ve won him more fanatics. Do you think the orchestrated move by Ofori Amponsah and his team via the Ebony paper and his appearance on Iso Paeley’s Hitz Video was a mere coincidence?

On Hitz video, he only came just to rebuff the story and not grant any interview and then his subsequent performance on the weekend’s ‘Music Music’. You catch my drift? That ploy could have passed for an Academy Award if it had pulled off. And Graphic Showbiz’s ability to reveal such a scam is simply groundbreaking and that’s some excellent investigative journalism. Publicity stunts by artistes are never a crime and it pays sometimes, but you’ve got to plan it very well to pull it off.