Amidst all the positive buzz Morton’s steak house generated with its delivery of a steak to Peter Shankman at an airport baggage claim, there’s also a fair amount of criticism, dismissal and snark.

In case you missed the story, Peter (founder of HARO, social media A-lister and all-around good guy) tweeted jokingly to Morton’s Twitter account that a porterhouse waiting for him when he landed in New Jersey would be great. Peter is a regular Morton’s customer—a VIP-level customer, in fact—and it doesn’t hurt that he has nearly 110,000 followers. Morton’s sent a tuxedo-clad waiter to deliver the steak to Peter in baggage claim.

The story was covered by the likes of Time, Forbes, Business Insider, PC Magazine, Huffington Post, CBS News, the Daily Mail and dozens of other news outlets (who doesn’t love a good story?), generating a reach that has to be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Stacked against the publicity the effort generated and the resulting online buzz, the cost of delivering the steak was a pittance.

Peter blogged about the experience, insisting the special treatment was the result of his loyalty to Morton’s, not because of his social media clout (with a “c”). The critics, however, dismiss the tale as nothing more than a PR stunt producing limited, short-term results. Some insisted Morton’s was just opening itself up to the expectation that if Peter got a steak delivered at the airport, so should they.

But let’s leave the specifics of Peter’s personal experience aside and spend a minute looking at the core criticism: It’s just a PR stunt and the effects will be short-lived.

Is it true? And if it is, so what?

The value of a good stunt

I don’t understand the contempt for PR stunts. Good PR stunts rock. They cause no harm, they can be great fun, they require little investment of time or money, they generate a ton of earned media and people talk about them. I can’t for the life of me find a downside.

Great examples of coverage and buzz earned through a clever stunt are abundant in PR history. Remember Tourism Queensland’s advertising for an island caretaker? Nobody expects the organization to recruit for similar jobs the same way on a regular basis, do they? Or how about when the studio behind The Simpsons movie painted an underwear-clad Homer Simpson brandishing a donut on a hillside next to the ancient Cerne Abbas giant fertility symbol? Or IBM getting its Watson computer to compete on Jeopardy, Kanye West rapping on a Delta Airlines flight, Tiger Woods teeing off the helipad of the world’s tallest building…all great stunts. And these just scratch the surface.

Stunts, of course, can go horribly awry. There was The Cartoon Network’s deployment of LED light boards in Boston, leading people to think bridges had been rigged with bombs. And in the world of fiction, nothing beats WKRP station manager Mr. Carlson’s dropping Thanksgiving turkeys from a helicopter. (“As God is my witness,” he said, “I thought turkeys could fly.”)

But bad stunts are just a matter of bad planning. A good stunt is priceless.

Short-term gain

Several criticisms attacked the short-term gain the stunt produced. If it’s true and the results are short-term, is that a bad thing? As long as Morton’s also has strategies for ensuring long-term gain as well (like excellent food and outstanding service), who would turn down some short-term gain that comes at such a low cost? According to one source that spoke with the Morton’s social media team, sales and bookings were up across the board. That’s a win, any way you look at it.

But I also question whether the stunt is all that superficial or short-term. Consider that the restaurant chain’s Twitter team is staffed by people smart enough to come up with not just this stunt, but an ongoing stream of activity. It wasn’t just meeting Peter at baggage claim with a steak. It’s also meeting Jimmy Vinicky and Blakeley Ainsworth at the Jacksonville, Florida restaurant with a special, personal menu.

Vinicky made a reservation for his and Ainsworth’s two-year anniversary. Via Twitter, he let them know the dinner was a special event, and the restaurant staff greeted the couple with the special menu featuring their Twitter handles. Both of them tweeted their delight and their thanks to Morton’s and its Jacksonville location.

Will everybody celebrating a special event expect a special menu now? Doubtful. But as long as Morton’s continues to encourage this kind of response from a creative Twitter team, the ultimate impact will be long-term and ongoing: You can expect to be wowed by Morton’s (which is exactly how the Twitter team puts it).

Customer service vs. customer recognition

In his post, Peter insists that his 100,000-plus Twitter followers had less to do with the airport porterhouse delivery than great service for a valued customer. Some critics jumped on that, arguing that great customer service requires consistency and airport steak delivery isn’t scalable, nor is it characteristic of great service; responding well to every customer complaint would be an example of great customer service, according to one blogger.

I’ll take issue, though, with Peter’s premise. The steak delivery was not in the least a demonstration of customer service but rather of customer recognition. And recognition is usually a one-time activity. An employee honored as Employee of the Year probably demonstrates exceptional behavior every day. Will he win the award every day? Or even every year? No, it’s just that one-time demonstration of appreciation for everything he does routinely. No employee expects a daily ceremony and certificate.

Anyway, I’m impressed with Morton’s actions and baffled by the criticism. For some, maybe it’s just a little envy that Peter got special treatment or that they didn’t think of this kind of outreach on behalf of their own companies or clients. Maybe it’s a failure to appreciate the value of a gimmick. Maybe it’s denial of the worth of short-term gain or a failure to see the long-term value.

As for me, I don’t care whether it was a stunt or a culture of customer recognition by a savvy social media team supported by a progressive C-suite. Bring on more of it.

Update: Interestingly, it took only a couple minutes for me to be criticized for writing this post about a story that’s nearly two weeks old. I’ve been on the road (Asia and South America) for the last two weeks, with limited time to peruse my feeds, so I wasn’t even aware of it until recently. Second, the criticism has been ongoing. And no, I’m not pandering for my own steak. If I want one, I’ll grill it myself!