In which we’re all going to die
Friday, February 2nd, 2007The tubes are a buzz of Boston’s latest “terrorist scare.” The creators of Aqua Teen Hunger Force put out what are essentially a bunch of lite brights of their cartoon characters, 38 of them scattered around Boston. They dilligently did their duty blinking away for three weeks before the Boston PD took notice and called in the bomb squad.
Yes they brought in the bomb squad, why? you might ask. Well Johnny because there were blinking lights and exposed wires and anyone who has seen a movie in the last 30+ years knows that ALL bombs have blinking lights and exposed wires, it’s how you know it’s a bomb. So anyways the Boston PD essentially shut down the city while they removed this threat to security. As soon as the creators heard their viral ad campaign was being treated as a threat to national security they told the city where to find all the devices.
Once the city of Boston learned that they had over-reacted to an obvious non-threat they turned on the spin machine. Instead of calling it what it was, a viral marketing campaign, they are calling it a “Hoax.” Yep, that’s how they are trying to save face, by pretending that instead of a marking campaign they are saying that the creators of the cartoon were infact trying to scare the general public rather than get word out of their work.
To the creators I imagine this is a win regardless, infact I would wager this is more than they had hoped for. Everyone in Boston and then some now know about the cartoon, as far as viral marketing goes this one is definitely in the success category. To me it is another reason I get to sit on my fine Canadian high horse, point and laugh.
To further illustrate my point:
Popularity: 82% [?]
