The Brandcast

You’ve already heard the news.

Citizens in Boston, MA, cried bomb in early February, when what amounted to battery powered light-bright panels displaying a character from the cartoon series Aqua Teen Hunger Force were finally noticed, after a scant three weeks’ time.

Now, Sam Ewen, CEO of Interference, the media company behind the guerrilla marketing campaign, is finally breaking his silence about the entire debacle. And I can’t believe what this poor guy has been raked through.

His company, and their client, Turner Broadcasting, paid $2 million dollars to the city of Boston. Half was meant to cover the expenses of emergency responders, and the other half was given ‘in good faith’, or, in legalese, to avoid a court date. But I don’t think that Interference or Turner should have had to pony up that kind of cash, because of a guerrilla marketing campaign that people misinterpreted and just plain overreacted to. Nothing malicious was intended or suggested.

To say the least, these recent events have every marketing company reevaluating their alternative media campaigns, if they’re even still on the table. As a New Yorker, I can understand that we live in a more sensitive world than we did prior to the September 11th attacks, but– light-bright panels? I mean, these things looked like crude signs, at best. Perhaps I risk sounding thick-skinned, but I don’t feel threatened by a cartoon soft drink, even if its giving an inappropriate hand gesture.

It goes without saying that the police probably should have investigated this more closely before involving the news media. The live CNN chopper coverage created a good dose of mass panic and fear, after which, the word ‘hoax’ started being thrown around. The word hoax, though, wrongly implied that that the campaign was intended to cause a panic.
I’m concerned that this will cause many great guerrilla campaigns to never see the light of day. Many companies will be paralyzed from fears of bad press and lofty fines, rather than be eager to delight us all with highly conceptual, interesting creative media. There are  many variables in some guerrilla marketing tactics where someone might claim that the marketer is liable for an accident. But, that isn’t new, either–and problems have stemmed from more traditional media, too. I remember, while growing up in Syracuse, NY, a billboard that displayed an attractive woman reclining in a bikini, holding a frosty beer. Several, if not a dozen men crashed their cars because they were oggeling the sign. Public safty hazard? I’m not sure. If that same woman had actually been somewhere wearing the same outfit, would she have personally been blamed for stopping traffic? How much responsibility should fall on the observer to properly interpret what they are viewing (or know when to not be distracted for way too long)? Where do we draw the line here?

It’s unfortunate that the likely outcome of this situation will be increased censorship of great ideas. I’m happy, though, that Interference, and other shops like it, plan to keep up their great work–because, at least personally, I can’t wait to see what they think of next.