CN in deep doo-doo after panic in Boston.
 

(Mods, feel free to delete this if it's offensive somehow, I decided to post it since it's CN-related and didn't think it would to be too controversial.)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/01/bos...are/index.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,249110,00.html

Basically, Boston was in widespread panic when a marketing ploy for Cartoon Network consisting of small L.E.D. lights placed around bridges and subways was mistaken for "bomb-like devices".

What did the lights form? That's right, kids: Ignignokt from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

They couldn't comprehend their superior promotional campaign.

Adult Swim has apologized.

Haha, I almost posted about that myself. You've got to wonder what they were thinking when they dreamed up this idea. 8D

I'm glad someone posted about this. I saw the apology on adult swim last night and I wondered WTH was going on. I'll check out those links.

Yeah, something that homemade and suspicious-looking would be bound to get people fired up.

On the bright side, it's just in time for the feature-length movie in March!

Yeah really, I only found out about it like, this morning, so I had to scour the Internet for information. Well, not really scour, since the AS message board is going berserk.

yeah i heard about this yesterday on AOTS. kinda funny. now im going to that movie even more than i wanted to before!

Yeah, consider the source - Boston, MA 8D

OMG- I saw that, it was pretty wierd.

I can understand why it happened though. It's not too hard to be frightened by flashing lights that shouldn't be there in passing. Word gets around and you got yourself a case of the Chinese Whispers, and there's a bomb in town. Now the city was overzealous, but the marketing firm isn't clean on this ordeal either.

This situation gets better even, wait till you all get a load of the press conference held by the two guys that were arrested in Boston....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx2ytr2Oyv4

That was... surreal. :bloocross: :cheesegrin:

One of them reportedly got arrested, and will probably be spending his time with people with names like "Bubba" and "Bruiser".

...or I guess he got released. He could still get arrested again I guess.

BEST

PRESS CONFERENCE

EVER

IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

Okay... :wiltshock: 8D

In all honesty, I find this to be a little ridiculous having people freak out over it. I understand that they would be weirded out but I think the bomb squad coming in was just freaking stupid. People need to seriously lay off their paranoia tea.

Why do I say this? Because consider this: Only a total MORON would make a bomb that has a bright neon light sign on it and post it around places where EVERYONE can see them. Bombs are hidden, not broad casted to everyone.

No one would put bright neon lights on something unless attention is wanted, and it was. I also support the guys because it's a novel and (apparently) a risky move to show your support for a show you love (which I also love VERY much).

I support these guys for doing it and feel that anyone who shows off those lovable megabyte morons, the Mooninites, can't be that bad.

Apparently people in Boston don't watch Adult Swim. Nor have they ever played with Lite-Brites.

You're right though, although the hand gesture Ignignokt was making didn't help the culprits' case much, the fact remains that no one would make a bomb with neon lights on it.

All in all it's terrible marketing. If it worked properly, no one who hasn't seen the show would've got it anyway. It was a poor campaign in the first place, you must admit. So like I said before, pretty much both sides are to blame.
Oh, and those two guys could've shown a little more tact at that press conference. That was pretty much uncalled for.

Yeah, I don't get why Adult Swim would have such cryptic marketing campaigns, considering that literally all their original comedies are cult instead of mainstream. Then again, I've realized that AS can sometimes be as baffling as daytime CN when it comes to their decisions.

I wonder if this can get any weirder... :cheesegrin:

I heard about this on Wendsday when I saw it on Bill O'Reilly's Factor. I thought it was funny, but at the same time It shows the poor due process in Boston. I would put the Panic Fault on the the Boston Police department because in their Due Process the thing should have been realized that it was not a danger. I mean, the things are in 9 other cities and none of the other cities paniced. naturally no one reported on if any of the other cities even saw the signs.

I think this just goes to show that the Managment of CN and more particularly Adult Swim need a Baby Sitter. I cannot stand the discissions that they make, I think they do things based on there own personal tast and ignore what is good for the making the shows successful. for example Why would they waste time and money showing a the Cheese commercial on ABCFamily. It made no sence, since it is not representative of Fosters. and it is not the type of commersal that would attract new viewers. Yes it is funny for peope that like cheese, but it is proboly annoying to people that do not like cheese.

I hope Turnner puts some seasoned Channel Executives into CN and Adult Swim to turn them around.

On a side note What is REALLY funny is the Tunner News off there corprate site lists adult swim as being a leader in the ratings Just the day before the Boston Fiasco.

Monty :-/

I watched the whole scare as it was happening, and I had a BIG laugh when it turned out the be an Aqua Teen advert gone wrong.
I think the problom is that CN got a third party to handle the advertisments. They should have done them themselves because we would have probably have seen something REALLY special.
I can't blame people for thinking those were bombs, and I'm happy we live in a world where people overreact about somthing that's harmless instead of underreact over somthing potentially dangerouse.

I love that the two guys when interviewed kept telling people that their questions weren't "hair questions". Classic.

Unfortunately, I think people do both.

Hear hear. I say such press conferences are what we need MORE of.

I will say this: while I stand by the idea that the entire thing was (or should have been) harmless, there's no question that it was a poor marketing ploy, especially in the current society we're living in where anything that's small and electronic could possibly be conceived as a bomb.

Now, while it was a poor campaign, I really don't agree with putting blame upon Adult Swim for it, or at least not to a major extent. While they could have been conceived (and well, were conceived) to be bombs by those seeing them, the reason they turned out to cause so much panic was because people didn't stop to think. Like Mr. Marshmallow basically said, if these were bombs, they were quite possibly the most poorly crafted bombs ever imagined.

The thing about the press conference was this: was the way they behaved themselves in poor taste? Yes. I can't really argue with that. However, even with it being in bad taste, I think they were treating it, oddly enough, in the most logical way possible. That is, they were treating a ridiculous event well....ridiculously. So, while not in good taste, I will admit I was amused by it. I do, however, feel bad for their lawyer. I would've hated attempting to defend those two and explain how they were acting while that was going on.

For the moment, I'll refrain from saying much of anything else, because my own personal bias of the show (I own all four DVDs) will almost certainly make me defend the show more than any logical person should. While I stretch, if Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis called their fans to them in order to summon some kind of bizarre militia, I would probably fight and die in their service. You all probably think I'm kidding; sadly, while even I don't know for certain, I'm probably not.

I'll end with this before I babble any longer: I think the Mooninites have finally proven that The Moon Rulez #1.

I was so enraptured with the events, that I changed my avatar and signature.


Nevar forget.

This reeks of cynicism. Some marketing jerk realised that no publicity is bad publicity and manufactured this whole sorry incident. Wouldn't put it past em spreading the blatently ridiculous bomb story. It wasn't like that Wild Wild West incident from a few years ago that genuinely was badly thought out marketing.

As for these 2, I'd make them take something that makes their hair fall out permanantly. Then see how keen they are to talk about damn hair.

LMAOOOOOO!!!! xDDD

That's great.

It's nice that you found a cause to support, but I removed your sig and avatar because they were inappropriate for this forum. Which leads me to my opinion on the "campaign" - I like the Mooninites and all, but it was tacky to place images of a character flipping the bird all over the place for everyone and their child to have to look at. Yes, I know there are "worse" things out there, but I don't support those either, not when they're in public areas. It's like when I worked at a major theme park in southern California, we'd get people who would wear a plain t-shirt when entering the park then go to a restroom and switch to one with vulgar language on it, or images of characters having sex, because it gave them a thrill to break the rules. Meanwhile families had their vacations (which they had planned and worked for for possibly a long time) dampened. I'm just saying, inappropriate imagery is best kept to areas only frequented by people who care to see it.

However, that particular image wasn't really all *that* bad (I noticed no one really cared about that anyways), and the whole bomb thing I find silly. I don't think people should have raised such a stink over that. A slap on the wrist, I guess I can see. And I can support the guys treating the situation as they have if that's what they want to do.

I saw a video on Youtube of them putting the things up, and they were really small and kind of in corners and stuff, so it's a bit surprising people noticed them at all. I wouldn't have, but I'm not very observant in general.

I agree that it's a bit tacky, but not too bad since the characters in question are ones you could make a reasonably realistic depiction of on an Etch-a-Sketch. It probably didn't help with the whole bomb thing, though, since if the motivation for terrorism were to be summed up in a hand gesture, that would be it. They wouldn't be covered in lights, of course, but maybe some words or something would have helped instead of just putting up the things and letting people (especially people who apparently don't watch Adult Swim since nobody recognized them) draw their own conclusions.

The hair thing in the press conference is funny, but I like how that one reporter totally went with it. "Are you afraid that if you go to prison they'll cut your hair?" Smoooth.

But Adult Swim is at the top of the Ratings for Adults 18-34 How could so many people not know the moonites.

personally I think these type of advertising is pointless, particularly because how is it suppose to tell people about the movie. now even a WWW or a name on the sign. But it seems like CN likes these Inside Joke type advertising, I do not know why because it will not attract new viewers if they do not even know where the ad came from


MOnty :-/

Yeah, I agree -- if they know what it means, they watch it already, and if they don't know what it means, they've never heard of the show. I don't know how it would bring in new viewers or anything.

I didn't really take this as much as a movie promotion, but simply a promotion of the show itself. Aqua teen is pretty big now even before the movie was being produced, so promotion of it on any kind of level seemed almost inevitable.

I personally think this is too funny to take seriously. I mean yes it was a dumb thing to do, sneaking around putting bright weird devices on random locations to promote a cartoon show. But then again, Adult Swim is right up weird alley.

People make costumes, models, statues, and all kinds of weird crap to promote ATHF. This was obviously a much more advanced and public means of promotion, but I think it was just more like fandom power then advertising bout the movie.

But that's just me.

Wikipedia (article here, I like the name -- got a ring to it) says they were "used in a guerrilla marketing campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters" (which, by the way, is possibly the greatest movie title ever), but apparently part of Turner's statement about it just says they were advertising the show, so who knows.

To top it all off, they'd been in 10 cities for two weeks before the people in Boston raised a stink about it.

Still, the worst campaign ever. Unless this was the desired effect.

Do you think the controversy will affect the ATHF movie's box office...?

i KNOW it'll affect the ratings. but it could affect them good, which i think will happen. dont really know why though. but in any case, it will affect the movies' box office ratings.

No, if anything it means the film actually stands a chance of making over 20 million.

It's gonna help the movie like nobody's business. Controversy sells movies, it always helps bring people interest towards them. Passions of the Christ, South Park the movie, Da Vinci Code, Borat, everything about those movies screamed controversial.

That's the funny thing though, when people hear how offensive or touchy a movie is, that convinces people to go see it because they become curious at just how racy this could become. People have to know what it is because people LIKE to be shocked, they like things that stir them up.

Or at least they do, even if they don't admit it.

Btw, I just found this and I think it's safe to say how the web is feeling about this incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX0pwe5V9FY

This whole thing is guerilla marketing at its best. This movie was going to be a cult hit to begin with, now it will take over the world.

Not really at it's best. IF no one had reacted the picture would have made 30 mil at best.

We shall see, but it is usually true that controversy does sell.

I agree with that video in that I hate how everyone's using the word "hoax", since they were never meant to be, or to be percieved as, bombs. Ah well, Adult Swim raked in the ratings after that and I'm sure the movie will benefit regardless of how well/poorly the campaign was executed.

I love the "1-31-07 NEVER FORGET" signs.