An ad on the Super Bowl? More than $2 million this year. Having several thousand people demand something that was virtually unknown? All it takes is some controversy or one minute on a popular TV show.

Ladurée, a patisserie on Manhattan's Upper East Side that specializes in macarons, has profited from an appearance on "Gossip Girl." (Photo by Carla Bleiker/CNS)

“Scorpions for Breakfast,” a memoir published last year by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, was probably heading for the remainder pile, with Amazon recording it as around its 343,000^th most popular book after its November 2011 release. Then, on Jan. 25, Brewer made headlines when she had words with President Obama on a Phoenix tarmac, and was pictured pointing her finger in his face.

That photo, seemingly of a Republican governor telling off a Democratic president, went viral. Within days, her book zoomed from oblivion to seventh place among Amazon best sellers. So go the unintended, and often accidental, effects of controversy or public attention, which can translate into financial success.  “A p.r. campaign at its best really portrays the essence of that person,”  says Frank Ovaitt, president of the Institute for Public Relations in Gainesville, Fla.  However, “if something that’s on the news does that, it works.”

In 2009, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez gave a book called “The Open Veins of Latin America”  to Obama during the fifth Summit of the Americas. Written in 1971 by journalist Eduardo Galeano, its subtitle, “Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” makes its subject plain. Two days later, it climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s bestseller list, up from about No. 54,000.

Why does unexpected notoriety, or fame, translate into success? “One wants to be current, abreast of what people are talking about,” said Chris Doeblin, who owns Book Culture, a group of independent book stores in New York City. It’s the same thinking behind the rush to buy  “The Satanic Verses” in 1989, after author Salman Rushdie was put under a fatwa by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Doeblin, 51, said he sold a stack of books as high as a person in one day. He added that books are also a way for people to fit in with their friends or imitating people they admire. “You want to emulate the people you’re with,” said Doeblin. “And you want to be like the people you respect.”

Words with Friends, a Scrabble-like app, was on everyone’s lips — and iPhones — after Alec Baldwin was kicked off an airplane for refusing to turn his phone off mid-game, thus delaying the jet’s takeoff in December 2011.  The incident may have been unfortunate for Baldwin, but it meant an unexpected sales jump for  Zynga, the company behind Words with Friends. “We didn’t pay for it, and we think it’s great how the app reached so many different people,” a spokeswoman for Zynga said.

Then there’s Planned Parenthood, which managed to turn a negative — the news that the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation was cutting $700,000 in funding — into a positive. Within days Planned Parenthood received $3 million from outraged donors who took to social media. Komen “did not adequately anticipate the reaction,” said Joel Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management. “With the Internet, your reputation can be trashed in minutes.”

To be sure, it isn’t just controversy that sells. Aspirations to be like a well-known person can also be a powerful factor. Thousands of women like 44-year-old Anja Stahmann, a politician from Germany, bought a replica of Kate Middleton’s engagement ring. Others purchased $799 replicas of the Carolina Herrera bridal gown worn by Bella in the latest “Twilight” movie.

When a scene in the CBS show  “The Good Wife” showed a character connecting his phone to a speaker in the shape of a stuffed lion, which mouthed the words spoken by the person on the other end of the line, an Australian marketer took a liking to the gadget and decided to start selling it.

The online store owner had 40 orders for the lion the first day he advertised it. He has since sold thousands for about $100 a piece, and shipped them all over the world. “There are very few major locations these guys have not visited,” said the owner of iShop, who gave his name in an email only as  Brian.

Mayela Arbona Montero, 23, a student from Denver, Colo., said she tried macarons for the first time solely because of “Gossip Girl” character Blair Waldorf’s “obsession with them.” An episode in which Blair bought the meringue-like cookies from the luxury French patisserie Ladurée did wonders for the new store in New York. “We’re out of six of our 14 flavors right now,” said Jason Noda, a Ladurée press spokesman.

Similarly, in July 2000, “Sex and the City” made the cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery a hit. A dozen years later, fans of the show like 18-year-old Stephanie Garcia from Sao Paulo, Brazil, are still flocking to the small store in Manhattan’s West Village.

“I’m only here because of Sex and the City!” the student said with a giddy smile after purchasing a box of cupcakes.

Email: ccb2141@columbia.edu