Guerrilla Marketers Gone Wild
February 1st, 2007
A screaming headline on Drudge. Boston bomb squads scrambling around the city. Blogs and message boards exploding with speculation. Panic and uncertainty in the air.
And Frylock, Shake and Meatwad couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
There’s an Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie on the way, and Turner Broadcasting marketers asked Interference, Inc. to design a guerrilla stunt that would get them a lot of press. It worked.
(The Interference site is down as of this posting, but in this 2001 interview, Interference CEO Sam Ewen says, “The neat thing about guerrilla marketing is that the media can buy into it and the campaign becomes the story.”)
Interference came up with magnetic lights reminiscent of a higher-tech Lite-Brite. They were designed to render a Mooninite giving the finger. They were also mistaken for pipe bombs and terrorist devices.
(Speaking of mistaken identities, this story reveals that initial reports said the Mooninite looked like Spongebob Squarepants who, to the best of my knowledge, never gave anyone the finger. But who knows: Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is seen peeing on everything in sight, so I suppose anything’s possible.)
Kevin Glennon (who should have been hired by Turner in Boston to handle this sort of thing, by the way) alerts us to this link, which takes you to this page with images of the devices being installed, and also includes a video clip of the Mooninites finding their new homes in Boston.
As Ignignokt (he’s the larger green one) says, “The innocent shall suffer. Big time.” On this day, at least, a Mooninite pronouncement came true. Big time.
Check out the BostonChannel.com story, especially the message board comments that almost unanimously damn Turner for the stunt. Turner apologized, of course, for what Reuters described as “the biggest city-wide security alert since the September 11, 2001, attacks.”
Says the Boston Mayor, “I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today’s incidents.” Just after dinner last night, the first arrest had been made.
To quote Err, the smaller pink Mooninite: “Uh, oh, look what someone did. You’re in trouble.”
The cynic in me makes me wonder: Since these mini-billboards have been up for weeks in nearly a dozen cities, and probably getting little or no attention at all, did someone purposely call the authorities in an attempt to raise the profile of the campaign? Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
It’s going to be fascinating to watch all this unfold in the days and weeks ahead.
Takeaway for marketers: Pushing the envelope? Beware of paper cuts! Or if you’re dealing with municipal property, clue in the appropriate agencies so that when someone mistakes your Mooninite flipping the bird for a terrorist device, the cop fielding the call knows to laugh, too.
FEBRUARY 1 UPDATE #1: This video of two arrested “ad prank suspects” refusing to feed the media beast is fascinating viewing. Kudos to whoever the reporter was who came up with an actual hair question that was sort of relevant.
FEBRUARY 1 UPDATE #2: This CafePress store is pretty funny.
FEBRUARY 2 UPDATE: Keith Olbermann had a pretty reasoned take on it all. Here’s a transcript.
FEBRUARY 5 UPDATE: The price of panic: $2 million. Details here.
FEBRUARY 7 UPDATE: The aforementioned Kevin Glennon, in whose backyard this whole fiasco took place, explains what really happened in Boston over here.