Turner’s "bomb scare" worth every penny of $2 million
So, the big news yesterday was that Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting division will shell out $2 million to make amends to the city of Boston for the “bomb scare” generated by the company’s guerilla campaign for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Sounds to me like money well spent. While the blogosphere mercilessly mocks Beantowners for their gullibility, and the MSM wrings their hands about “guerilla marketing gone wrong,” the fact is that the Boston “fiasco” was the best thing ever to happen to this campaign. After all, according to the Turner people, the LED signs at the center of the marketing effort had been in place in at least nine other cities for several weeks. But the fact is, nobody noticed them. Do a search for blog entries, mainstream news or even newsgroup postings on terms like “Aqua Teen signs,” “Mooninite LED” or similar terms, and you know what you’ll turn up prior to January 31, when the Boston news broke? Zilch. Nada. Zippo. So, yes, this was definitely a fiasco — until Boston. In just 24 hours, this campaign went from being the marketing equivalent of one hand clapping to front-page news. You just can’t buy that kind of coverage. Well, actually, you can. For just $2 million, Turner got thousands of news hits, gained new cred among the hip young viewers the company was trying to reach, and even created a lucrative secondary market in Mooninite gear. And they’re guaranteed a second round of publicity once the “Aqua Teen” movie rolls out later this year. As far as marketing efforts go, this was a very successful bargain — even if the Boston incident wasn’t planned in advance.
Update: Yes, I know that Cartoon Network head Jim Samples fell on his sword over this, but I still think that, by the definition of a guerilla campaign, this was still a huge success. Yes, the mainstream media, politicos and the Boston brass were outraged and demanded someone’s head. But, the fact remains that this campaign struck a chord with its intended audience of young, hip males. Was it right to install these devices in devices in cities all over the country, given our post-9/11 suspicions of any unusual object that shows up in public? Heck, no. But since when is marketing — especially the guerilla kind — about doing the right thing? So, yeah, maybe Samples had to go. But if the “Aqua Teens” flick is a hit, he’ll have no trouble landing a new job.
