Today was not a good day to be in charge of marketing for Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim “Aqua Teen Hunger Force“.

Turner broadcasting, which owns the Cartoon Network, admitted responsibility in today’s quagmire that brought Boston to a standstill. Guerrilla marketers had hit the streets and placed several magnetic lit versions of the character Err shown pointing toward the sky with its middle finger. They kind of looked like possessed Lite-Brites.

(Epa Photo)

Apparently they’ve been up for a couple of weeks and were placed in other cities such as “New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.” But it didn’t do much until today when commuters phoned-in reporting the figures as possibly being bombs. Emergency procedures ensued and now Mayor Menino is threatening up to two years in prison for each offense.

You may be thinking that it’s “mission accomplished” for the marketers. After all, the entirety New England’s media is buzzing with headlines and live spots from the day’s activities. On the other hand, there are a lot of pissed off Bostonians (including those within the target demo) who either missed their class, meeting, or work all together today because of the madness that ensued.

This is also another blow to the industry as today’s stunt gone bad is already being labeled as a “PR Explosion.” This is not what we have in our book as the definition of public relations. It’s immature and insensitve guerrilla tactics gone awry.

One has to wonder how this stunt was allowed to see the light. At a minimum, the character is flicking off everyone who sees it. While that may make sense to those who recognize the character and understand the brash nature of the show, it is just plain stupid for everyone else to have to endure. Just imagine if “The Office” did a similar promotion and showed Dwight flicking commuters off on their way to work. While that could be within the bounds of his character, it’d do more harm than good.

Turner did respond with a statement:

“We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger.”

Unfortunately it’s too little, too late. While there’s certainly more awareness with the show’s existence, today’s stunt isn’t making anyone in Boston want to watch it more. In fact, they’re probably hoping that somebody over there at Turner pays big time so that the taxpayers don’t have to fund today’s extravaganza.

We’re looking forward to hearing all about Turner’s reformed marketing policies, proactive measures to prevent such future occurrences, donations to the Boston Bomb Squad, etc…

Via Boston.com

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 6:49 pm and is filed under Advertising, Marketing, PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.