Here's a case in point. Nearly half a million people a day were calling a New
Jersey investment firm's voice mail just to hear the sound of a duck quacking.
Their automated reception, which began with those typical corporate prompts,
such as "To request a new account kit, press two," included as its last
option: "If you would like to hear a duck quack, press seven."
The brokerage firm, which has a mallard as its mascot, decided to throw in the
sound of a duck quacking as an option on their toll-free line -- it was a joke
at first. Being the last in a series of seven message prompts, they had thought
that nobody would notice or even care. But in a very short amount of time,
people started calling the line to hear the sound of the duck, tying up the
brokerage's phone system in the process.
With the phone number circulating throughout the Internet and by email, more
than 270,000 people called the toll-free number by the end of the first month.
"We didn't do anything," said the brokerage's CEO. "We just left it on our
voice mail -- the Internet took care of the rest."