3M Stashed $3M Inside Bulletproof Glass at Canadian Bus Stop as Part of Marketing Scheme?

In October 2024, a claim circulated online alleging that in 2005, manufacturing conglomerate 3M placed $3 million inside bulletproof poster glass at a Vancouver, British Columbia, bus stop as part of a marketing stunt, promising that whoever broke the glass could keep the money. 

This claim has surfaced many times through the years, including these Reddit threads from 2011, 2012, and 2022, on LinkedIn in 2016, on X in 2020, 2021, and 2023, as well as Threads and Facebook in 2024.

Users shared their ideas about how to crack the glass on various social media threads. One Reddit user wrote, “Tie it to my trailer hitch with a chain at the base and it’ll either break from the sideways shift or it’ll come out of the ground. Either way, I can get that open in my garage.”

Another asked, “What keeps people from sawing through the metal pipe, taking the entire unit back to a shop and attacking it with professional tools?” 

(XGramatik on Reddit)

Even in 2005, message boards were alive with users commenting on how best to achieve the task. “If that were real money, then it needs just a guy with a decent truck to pull the whole case out at 4 a.m., and then work at it someplace else,” said one member.

Snopes reached out to 3M and the marketing firm in question to confirm the details of the stunt and will update this story if we hear back. Until then, we’ve rated this claim as research in progress. 

In December 2005, AdLand reported the stunt was masterminded by the Vancouver ad agency Rethink Communications. According to CBC/Radio-Canada‘s 2024 report about the stunt on an episode of the show “Under the Influence,” Rethink simply put the display on the street and “just left it there.” The story continued:

Next, they aimed a video camera at the bus shelter to see if people would try to break the glass. Sure enough, people lined up to try. They kicked it. They hit it. There were a few flying sidekicks and even some construction workers with steel-toed boots. The glass never broke.

However, in 2006, Gizmodo revealed that it was not $3 million behind the glass, but rather $500 stacked on top of fake money. 

The outlet also reported that there was a stipulation of only using one’s feet to try and break the glass, and that there was a security guard on site to enforce the rules. 

Further, the stunt only lasted one day, and the product at the center of the stunt was not bulletproof glass, but 3M’s Scotchshield security window film. 

3M’s website describes the product as:

… an optically clear, glass shatter resistant and abrasion resistant 8-mil window film that, when applied as instructed to the glass surface of interior windows or doors, helps hold broken glass together and significantly reduces the ultra-violet light that normally would enter through the glass. Helps prevent flying glass shards in the following applications: spontaneous glass breakage, break and Entry Incidents, seismic events, intentional and accidental explosions, and windstorms.

According to a 2023 report by Canadian news outlet Daily Hive, 3M “received over $1 million in free publicity from all the organic local and national media coverage it earned at the time, and the cost of the stunt was just $6,000, including the cost of installing lights inside the case for the nighttime illumination of the cash.” In addition, the outlet reports that the stunt resulted in a three-month backlog of orders for Scotchshield. 

In 2017, a clip of Canadian talk show “The Marilyn Denis Show” was posted to YouTube, showcasing a demonstration of Scotchshield. 

The stunt has become a well-regarded example of guerrilla marketing within the marketing and advertising communities. In 2020, the marketing publication Better Marketing said, “3M’s stunt is an example to us all that a well-executed plan that is out of the ordinary can have long-lasting benefits for your business.” 

However, we could find no mention of the stunt on 3M’s official website or Rethink’s official website or social media, though Rethink appears to have since done campaigns for brands such as Ikea, Kraft Heinz, and Penguin Random House.

We’ve investigated viral marketing claims in the past, including this one featuring a billboard confronting a cheating spouse in 2006, a hawk dropping a snake on a family barbecue in 2016, and the story behind the “Charlie Charlie challenge” in 2015.