These kinds of guerrilla techniques can work, but they only work once or maybe a few times. I'm inclined to believe they worked at that time and in that context but you're right it wouldn't work today.
If you want to read about some things that wouldn't ever work today, but that absolutely worked when they were first tried, read about Marc Benioff's guerrilla marketing for Salesforce when they were just getting started.
Remember, immigration spam actually worked back in the day!
i have first hand retail experience trying to get a hw product into stores and could never pull that off.
i also highly doubt retailers would simply order a bunch of stuff without taking cash from customers first.