I’m really skeptical of marketing stunts pulled by companies because they usually end being pretty lackluster. Yahoo! on the other hand has created something wholly unique and fun that I can totally get behind.

Yahoo! announced on their mail blog that they began to ship around the country a giant purple mailbox that they dubbed “The Purple People Greeter.” While it sounds pretty silly on paper, it’s a pretty awesome concept in practice. The idea is that this giant talking purple mailbox would sit on the corner of a street and talk to people as they walked by. While it does offer the initial fun of freaking people out and getting awesome reactions, what they do next is even cooler.

The person in the mailbox would give presents to the people walking by. One person got an iPad while another guy received tickets to a big game.

Yahoo! has definitely inspired some goodwill with this latest marketing ploy and I fully support it. I just hope that I may one day find myself face-to-face with the Purple People Greeter.

Check out the video below for all the great reactions people make when confronted with a giant talking purple mailbox: