The Adult Swim
February 8th, 2007
The Adult Swim’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force promotional stunt that shut down bridges and highways in and around Boston was a bomb from the start. I mean, come on, guerilla marketing is one thing but thinking like a guerilla is another. In this post-9/11 era, this is about as close to shouting FIRE in a theater as you can come and not go to jail. (As of yet the apes who planted the ‘devices’ are still charged with a crime and Turner has ponied-up $2 million).
So, what does Turner Broadcasting do to fix bad marketing… they try for some good PR… to the tune of $1 million to the city and state and another $1 million in “goodwill funds”. For that money, they could have passed out $5.00 bills to everyone in Boston with a note that read, “Please watch Adult Swim”.
February 9th, 2007 at 06:25 PM I believe Bostonians would have preferred receiving $5 bills - I would have. However, this same guerilla tactic happened in nine other cities - and the only reason these other events received media coverage was because of the Boston backlash. In the end, if your company has $2 million to put towards a PR event, this type of tactic is now shown to be very effective. Not only are we and other bloggers discussing it all over the net, but almost every daily paper, radio talk shows and every television news outlet continues to cover the story...even a week and a half later.
February 12th, 2007 at 09:47 AM That is sort of like the old saying… “I don’t care what you write about me, just spell my name right.” What you say may be true but just like you probably should not joke about a bomb while on line at the airport check-in, stunts that border on the edge ‘security incidents’ will eventually get someone hurt. I’ve also been told that the other cities had no problem and that Boston officials just couldn’t take a joke. Maybe it is just me but how edgy does guerilla marketing have to be to attract that demographic?
February 12th, 2007 at 12:10 PM Well on Friday the head of Cartoon Network stepped down - pretty shocking. See Here I agree with Jonathan Berr that "None of this publicity will hurt the film or Adult Swim's ratings. If anything, it will make the weird cartoons seem even more anti-establishment in the eyes of their target audience." That being said, Jim Samples resignation is surprising. I believe Jim Samples only needed to recognize that in today's heightened security concerned world it was a mistake to not consider the devices raising suspicion and concern. Since 90% of the cities hardly took notice of these lighted boxes, only an apology, not a resignation, was necessary.
March 27th, 2008 at 02:36 AM Nice analogy, as always, Thom.