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BUSINESS PROFILE How 1 Marketing Campaign Turned Into a Terrorism Scare MAKEABOOM, BUT LEAVE OUT THE BOMB SQUAD
This doesn’t mean you can’t take risks in your marketing. Having a promotion that features a character flipping off its audience is certainly risky, but was it a poor idea? In this case, the show got famous for its obnoxious humor and aggressive stances. The gesture may certainly deter many Americans, but at the same time, it attracted a very specific demographic for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Success or Failure? After the debacle of the Boston Bomb Scare and the mass hysterics behind it, Cartoon Network’s GM was forced to resign his stead. Many die-hard fans of the network have the resounding sentiment that this was the beginning of the cable TV channel’s downfall. The new leadership would take on a different approach to programming, and ratings for the network took a nosedive. Turner was forced to pay a settlement of $2 million for the mania caused by the campaign. This would cover the costs of the state and local agencies that were called to intervene and of preventing any litigation on the matter from occurring. If you believe there’s no such thing as bad publicity, then this campaign may be the biggest dollar-for-dollar success ever. What cost Turner a couple thousand dollars ended up garnering national attention and consistent exposure for days on end. The national platform introduced the show to hundreds of thousands of potential new viewers who would’ve never known about it otherwise. The movie made well over $5.5 million at the box office with a budget of only $750,000. Yet, taking a $2-million hit and negative publicity from the events that transpired begs the question: Can you call this marketing campaign a success or a total failure?
incident spiraled out of control into a daylong search-and-destroy mission. By 1 p.m., news stations had latched onto the story like a stage-five clinger and were broadcasting the tale across the country. You couldn’t turn on a TV in America without hearing about how “suspicious devices” were found scattered around the city of Boston.
All of this was because a pedestrian bystander saw one of the signs underneath a bridge and called authorities, thinking it was a bomb. With the constant threat of terrorism still on the minds of many Americans, the city of Boston reacted the only way they knew how. Local authorities shut down highways and public transportation for hours as they traversed the city in search of the devices. Finally, at 5 p.m., Turner released a statement about the intent of the signs and tried to put an end to the wave of panic that they caused. Nobody Cares About Your Intentions Hoax? Publicity stunt? Generation gap? Terrorist scare? The rhetoric used by the media to describe this incident doesn’t describe what it really was. It was a marketing campaign gone horribly, horribly wrong. Turner didn’t intend for this to be a bomb hoax or a publicity stunt. But in marketing, intention doesn’t matter. Marketing is all about interpretation. When you close off any consideration for how your marketing is going to be interpreted and only focus on what it’s intended for, you run the risk of alienating your entire audience. On the other hand, when both interpretation and intention exist in harmony, great campaigns are sure to follow. You certainly want your marketing to make a boom, but you don’t want it to activate the bomb squad. Thinking in a Silo If you don’t run your marketing through every possible scenario, you subject it to failure. Look at your marketing from all perspectives. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and only see the end goal, but all it takes is one mistake for things to spiral out of control. This campaign ran in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Austin, Philadelphia, and of course, Boston. Boston may have been the only city with an issue, but it derailed the entire campaign.
“Scaring an entire region, tying up the T (subway system) and major roadways, and forcing first responders to spend 12 hours chasing down trinkets instead of terrorists is marketing run amok. It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt. Whoever thought this up needs to find another job.” This was the reaction of Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey to one of the most notorious guerrilla marketing campaigns in recent years. In 2007, Turner Broadcasting and their subsidiary cable channel Cartoon Network began promotions for a full- length feature film version of one of their most popular and beloved programs. “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” had been rapidly climbing the after-hours TV ranks for years and became one of the headliners of Cartoon Network’s late-night programming, Adult Swim. All of the key characters were featured, but because of a marketing campaign gone awry, one character would go down in infamy. How ‘The Mooninites’ Invaded Boston Frequently featured on “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” The Mooninites are villainous pixelated aliens from the inner core of the moon. When it came time for Turner to promote their new movie, they decided to use these characters in a grass-roots campaign. As they had done many times in the past, Turner outsourced some of the film’s marketing to smaller agencies. Interference, Inc. was tasked with promotions for the city of Boston and was shipped 40 electronic Lite-Brite signs depicting a Mooninite flipping the bird. Then, three employees went around town to destinations with a high traffic of young people and put up the crass illuminated signs. Call the Bomb Squad Two weeks after putting up the signs, the Boston Police Department had the bomb squad on a wild-goose chase. At 9 a.m., the first sign was disposed of in a controlled detonation, and what began as an isolated
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