Reporters and PR pros alike are familiar with the “quiet period” – the sometimes months-long stretch when a pre-IPO company doesn't share much of anything with the public – and doesn't get much positive publicity in return.

Not so for social gaming company Zynga, which benefited from fortuitous product placement in one of 2011's most whimsical celebrity meltdowns when actor Alec Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to stop playing the company's Words with ...